


Rise of Chaos

by TheStarkster



Series: Rise of Chaos [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Awesome Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, F/M, Humor, I favor some characters so sue me, M/M, Not Canon Compliant - The Trials of Apollo, Original Character-centric, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Percabeth is forever, Reyna-centric, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, This is like the first fic in the series, jason is still dead tho, so its kinda slow, this is not a slash, this is one of a series, updates will probably be irregular
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:26:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 42,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26354164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStarkster/pseuds/TheStarkster
Summary: Strange things are happening in the demigod world. Camp Half-Blood has disappeared. No contacts are responding. The gods are silent. No prophecies, no guidance, no help, the demigods are fighting are blind. But this is just the beginning, the eye of the storm, and they are not prepared.......Edit: Fic has now been given a uniform format (Sorry, but it took me time to get the hang of posting works on ao3)
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Calypso/Leo Valdez, Ella/Tyson (Percy Jackson), Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Series: Rise of Chaos [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915033
Comments: 44
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is just an idea that popped into my head. I will try to update as regularly as I can, but life is pretty busy, so updates are bound to be irregular (Please forgive me). Do tell me what you think, though.  
> This is not canon compliant with Trials of Apollo. I am going to assume that Apollo didn't get punished and remained a god. So basically Reyna didn't join the Hunters, Meg doesn't appear. Jason was killed by rogue monster some time back, and Calypso won't be appearing either. Let's assume that she's there somewhere in the background.  
> All characters are property of Rick Riordan. I only own the OCs. (Except Jakob Pichler, he belongs to IzzyMRDB)  
> Also note, the author is not American and has never set foot in the States (or the rest of the continent) so please forgive any factual errors like travelling time or general descriptions if any. However, feel free to point them out, as it would help to make the story better. :-)

**PERCY**

I was having a great day. My mom was in a good mood, I was doing well in my SAT preparations, I was going to meet Annabeth later in the day, basically having a great time.

So, of course, it had to go to shit.

This means, of course, it started with an Iris Message from Leo.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with Leo. Especially now, with Jason, you know, _gone,_ he is kinda my best bro. But he has a tendency to make crazy plans (and I'm the guy who shoved ice cream sandwiches down the Nemean Lion's throat at the Smithsonian after sneaking up on some Hunters of Artemis. Yeah, yeah, I know. Whatever.)

But Leo was completely serious in this case. Which is bad news. Anything that makes Leo serious is bad news.

"Hey, Percy. Got a minute?"

He called me Percy. Not Water Boy. Not Aqua man. Something is seriously wrong now.

"Yeah. What's up?"

He started to nervously fiddle with some wires in his hand. "Is Annabeth with you?"

"No. Why? Has something happened to her?" I demanded.

"Whoa!" Leo threw his hands up in a peace gesture. "Bro! Chill! I was just checking to see if I would have to I'M her again or I could save my breath and my drachma. But seriously, I need your help."

I relaxed. "Okay, what's wrong?"

"Uh… would you happen to know, by any chance, where Camp Half-Blood disappeared to?

**************************************

Thirty minutes later, Leo, Calypso, Annabeth and I were standing at Half-Blood Hill. Or what is _supposed_ be Half-Blood Hill.

There was nothing there. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing. I kept rubbing my eyes, hoping that the boundaries would magically appear in front of my eyes. But nothing happened.

Annabeth finally gave up. "It's not the Mist. I think we should call Camp Jupiter. See whether this is happening there as well. Percy, Leo, you two try and see if there are any signs of unusual beings here. I'll try to talk to Reyna."

I suddenly felt like laughing. Annabeth must have noticed it, because her eyes narrowed at me. "What?"

I shook my head. The last time someone had iris messaged Reyna… I don’t know who was more scared, Hazel or Reyna. "Nothing."

Leo started to say something, but I pulled him by the elbow. "Come on, come on." I muttered. "Please don’t let me make a fool of myself."

"I would pay for you to make a fool of yourself, Water Boy. But come on. Annabeth is scary."

"We are _dating,_ Leo."

"Well, there is no accounting for the taste of girls nowadays, is there. Ow! Stop pinching me!"

***********************************

Half an hour later, the three of us were at the same place again. Annabeth looked worried.

"Hey, Wise Girl." I slipped an arm around her shoulders. "What's wrong?"

She sighed. "Stop it, Leo."

Leo was making small kissing faces at weird gestures at us. He saw me glaring at him and stopped. "All right. Please don’t tell me Camp Jupiter is gone. Because I'll believe it. This is not even, like, my craziest thing for today. Then I'll jump off a cliff screaming. Just so, you know…" He saw Annabeth's crossed arms. "Or, you know, I could just shut up."

"Camp Jupiter's not missing, Leo. They just have a tiny problem."

"Which is?"

"Reyna is missing."


	2. Chapter II

**PIPER**

The six of us, along with Nico, sat around one of the large tables in New Rome. I couldn’t help but think that there should have been two more, Jason at my side and Reyna at the head of the table. Reyna and I had never been close, but we were definitely allies. It felt weird, in a way, because Reyna and Annabeth were the only ones Leo listened to, and it was like the balance of the meeting had been upset.

"So, are we sure that she's really missing?" Percy asked. "I mean, she hasn’t just gone somewhere, has she?"

"Yes, Percy," Leo said. "The most stiff, upper lip you-better-not-break-rules-or-else fighter of the Twelfth Legion Fumaria has slipped away and gone on a field trip for a couple of days without telling anyone. We could try searching at the nearest shopping mall. Maybe we'll find her browsing the shelves at Victoria's Secret."

" _Fulminata,_ Valdez." Frank leaned back into his chair.

"Hold on, Legolas. You seriously _did not_ call me a Fulminata."

Frank sighed. "It's the Twelfth Legion _Fulminata,_ not the Fumaria. But Leo is right. Something is seriously wrong. Aurum and Argentum nearly tore the camp apart, barking at tearing and scratching. Now they're both sitting at her desk in the Praetoria, looking morose and nursing jellybeans. Never thought I'd feel sorry for those dogs but… hell, I don’t even hold a grudge against them for ruining a perfectly good set of my jeans."

Leo leaned forward onto the table. "I don’t even know whether to begin. Do I start at the fact that _Frank_ said I was right, or that our dear friend here actually said _Hell,_ or imagine Reyna's dogs tearing your jeans, or the fact that they eat jellybeans.”? He paused. "Rhyme unintended."

"What about Camp Half-Blood?" Hazel asked. "How does a place just disappear?"

Annabeth threw her hands up in frustration. "I don’t know! I can't even contact Chiron or anyone at camp! I even tried contacting Olympus! Nothing!"

"Calm down Annabeth." Hazel placated the angry blonde. "We'll figure something out. We always do. Meanwhile you, Percy, Piper and Leo can stay here."

For most of them, Half-Blood Hill was a refuge. For Annabeth, it had been her home for almost ten years.

Frank stood up. "All right. We'll split up the work. Annabeth and Piper can search the library for information. Hazel, Percy, try to get some information out of Ella. You two are the ones she trusts the most. Or… wait. Percy, you try talking to some marine animals or horses. Try to figure out what's going on. Nico, you try to speak to some dead people. Maybe go to the Underworld and talk to some ghosts. Leo, try to figure out why our long-distance communications are gone. Focus on finding Reyna."

Percy whistled. "You really _have_ changed, dude. No longer the guy whom horses called Chinese-Canadian Baby Man."

Leo choked on the coke he was drinking. " _Chinese-Canadian Baby Man_? _"_

Frank blushed at the memory. "Cut it out, you two." He sighed. "I have a camp to run. I really don’t know how Reyna managed to hold the place together so many months on her own, especially with Octavian around. I feel like giving her a medal."

"Or you could feed her dogs some jellybeans." Leo's eyes twinkled.

Frank shuddered. "I think I'll pass. I'm not _that_ brave."

Percy shivered. "You know what's scarier? If we don’t find her soon, we'll have to tell Hylla. And that is one conversation I do _not_ want to have anytime soon."

I frowned. "Come on. She can't be _that_ bad."

Percy shook his head. "She is literally the _Queen_ of the Amazons. She makes Reyna look like a cute fuzzy kitten by comparison. And Reyna looks like she can kill six people in her sleep."

"She _isn't_ that bad." Hazel scowled at him. "I actually wished I had a fun older sibling like that."

Nico looked offended. "What about me, little sister?"

"She said _fun,_ Nico."

"All right everyone." Leo clapped his hands. "A disappeared camp, a missing Praetor, weird monster sightings and metal dogs eating jellybeans. This is _not_ going to get any weirder, so get to work. And remember" He wagged his finger in everyone's direction. "Last one with results talks to the Queen of the Amazons."


	3. Chapter III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hey! I've made some adjustments. Instead of the Percy Jackson style POV of the first two chapters, I've decided to switch over to the HOO style POV, mainly because it makes dealing with pronouns easier. Plus, English is not my first Language, it's kinda like my third language, so forgive any errors! Feel free to point them out, though.

**REYNA**

Reyna knew she was in trouble as soon as she woke up.

She didn’t know where she was. In the demigod world, that was a bad sign. Who was she kidding? It was a bad sign in any world.

First things first. _Look around you._ Wherever she was, she had never been before. She was in a glade or clearing of sorts, surrounded by tropical trees. It was a forest of sorts. No habitation anywhere.

Step two: Make an inventory. Food: Zero. Water: Zero. Weapons: She still had her _pilum_ and her _aegis_ cloak. Other than that, she had nothing, no plans, no idea where she was, and no plans.

She was so screwed.

********************************************

She had no idea how long she had been walking. All she knew was that her legs had fallen into a rhythm, one foot after the other, while her mind wandered elsewhere. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice the sounds that she should have noticed long ago.

_Footsteps._

_Human_ footsteps.

She tried moving towards the sound as quietly as she could. When she saw a clearing in front of her, she stopped. Behind her, forest, in front of her, a hill.

Someone entered the clearing. Reyna studied the newcomer. It was a girl, about 17 years old, with dark brown eyes and curly brown-black hair with golden-brown skin. She had sharp angular features, but there was also a softness to them. She was wearing dark grey jeans, a midnight blue t-shirt with something written on it in silver and a black hoodie.

_If anyone knows what is going on, it'll have to be her._

_She doesn’t look too hard to fight. Then why does my gut tell me to wait?_

Reyna shook her head. Any other time, she would have waited and thought it out, but she had to know what was going on.

_Come on, just a few steps closer._

For the first time she thanked the dense trees that gave her cover. She waited until the other girl had her back to her. She yanked her knife and jumped upon the other person.

She went down fast enough. Reyna pressed the tip of her knife against her throat.

"All right…" she began.

She didn’t get to finish. Something blasted her off and she landed several feet away. She got to her feet immediately and stood up to see the other girl (she was tired of calling her that already) charging at her. Reyna side-stepped easily and allowed her to charge past.

 _"You slipped."_ She thought.

Wait.

There was an arm wrapped around her throat. Suddenly she felt pain in her back and she crashed to her knees and face-planted on the ground.

_Way to go, Reyna. You just got taken down in less than a minute._

A dry chuckle escaped from the person pinning her down. "That always works." Reyna felt a knife pressing on her throat, right above her jugular.

 _Her_ knife.

"All right." Said the voice behind her. It had an accent to it, probably Asian. "Just tell me who you are, what the hell you are doing here, where are we and how the hell did I get here, and maybe I won't slit your throat."

*******************************************

"So you have no clue how you came to be here?" Reyna studied the other person in front of her.

She shook her head. "As clueless as you, stranger. What was your name again?"

"Reyna."

She held out her hand. "Al."

Reyna tried the name out. "Al. Is it short for something?"

"Yeah." Al didn’t elaborate. Reyna didn’t push it.

Al frowned. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Reyna thought back. "I was going somewhere. The Garden of Bacchus, I think?"

Al sat down. "You know what? Start from the beginning. Like, the _real_ beginning. Who you are, where you came from, why you keep saying weird stuff like that, etc, etc, etc. I'll do the same."

Reyna considered her chances. Why not? It wasn't as if she had to give any personal information. She launched into the story of Roman Gods and demigods, Camp Jupiter, how the Greeks had come knocking a year ago, the quest of the Argo II, the Earth Goddess, how she was defeated. She left out the more personal parts- her and Jason, Scipio's death, the secrets shared with Nico, the fact that Hylla was her sister.

To her credit, Al was a good listener. She sat with folded legs, elbows on knees, studying her with an intense gaze. She didn’t interrupt her until she was done. Once she had finished, Al stretched her arms. "So…" she said, fixing her intense brown eyes on Reyna once more. "You had a crush on Jason?"

Reyna stared at her. She opened her mouth, and shut it again. She'd never felt so out of words before, not even when she was frustrated with Octavian. "Is that what you took away from this?" she finally managed to say.

Al had covered the lower portion of her face with her hand. It took Reyna a second to understand that she was laughing.

Al seemed to notice her glare. "I'm sorry. It's just that" she chuckled "You look like I sucker-punched you or something. Like I needed any confirmation, I was right."

Reyna scowled. She didn’t know how Al figured it out but she wasn’t happy about it.

Then Al burst full out laughing, clutching her side. Reyna could feel her temper rising. Al might find it funny, but knowing that you would probably be alone the rest of your life was no joke.

"I'm really sorry." Al gasped. "It's just… this is too ridiculous. Gods? Monsters? Did you run away from Bedlam or something? You're kidding me right?"

Reyna sighed. "Look, Al, I know this is crazy. But it's true. I am a demigod."

Al laughed. "Right. And I'm Prince Hamlet. Pleased to meet you. Just because you've got a crazy Roman tattoo and a gold spear and a huge knife doesn’t mean you are suddenly the Black Widow."

Reyna frowned. "Who?"

Al stared at her. "You know, Black Widow? Like the Avengers? Movies? Comics? Natasha Romanoff? Monica Chang in the Ultimate Comics? Jesus, what _universe_ are you from?"

Reyna shook her head. "Look I don’t know who you're talking about…wait. How did you know my tattoo was Roman?"

Al pointed at her wrist. "SPQR. That stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus. The Senate and the People of Rome. Some people actually read. That thing's been burnt into your skin. You in a cult or something? And what's it with the torches?"

Reyna began "Al…" She never got to finish. There was a huge roar from behind her and a shadow flitted over her.

Al stood up and gripped her knife. _My knife,_ thought Reyna _._ "What the hell was that?" Reyna stood up and drew her pilum.

The trees parted. Or blew apart, more likely. Standing right in front of them, about 20 feet tall, was a Hydra.

Al made a squeaking sound and backed several steps. "Did _I_ escape from Bedlam?"

Reyna brought her spear up. "No. That's real. Find cover. Stay behind me."

Al nodded. "Right. I can do that. _That_ I can do."

The hydra started advancing on them.

"Go! Run!"

Al scrambled up the hill slope.

Reyna cursed her luck. She hated hydras. They were hard to kill, not just because of their size, but because there was absolutely no way of knowing which head to cut without doubling their number. Either you got lucky or you didn’t.

The hydra lunged at her. Reyna dodged, poison spattering at the place where she was at, steam curling from the ground. She jumped upon a clump of rocks and jabbed the pilum at the hydra.

That only seemed to annoy it.

_Come on, she thought. Just a little lower._

The hydra reached down and suddenly shot up, no doubt hoping to scare her. Reyna jumped and swung the pilum. A perfect arc. It sliced through three of the heads, which fell down. Six more sprouted out of the holes. _Brilliant._

Her mind went on autopilot. Slash, parry, jump, dodge. The hydra wasn’t backing down, and the lack of any place she could jump was making it hard to go on offense. It was too fast to run away from.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Al's voice sounded from her left.

Reyna turned and nearly had an aneurysm. She barely scrambled out of the way before a huge, and huge like about twenty feet diameter boulder ran down the slope.

The hydra looked at the boulder. Al grinned. "Say cheese."

The hydra screamed "ARROOOO!"

That was the last thing it said. The boulder ran over it and crushed its heads. The monster turned to dust.

Al jumped down and dusted her hands. "Not bad for my first time, right Praetor?"

Reyna stared at her. "How on earth did you move that thing?"

Al walked over to where she was standing. "Give me a lever and a fulcrum to place it and I shall move the Earth." She noticed Reyna's expression. "Archimedes said it. Plus, I don’t leave people behind to die."

**************************

They were walking along one of the hill tracks now.

"So what's it with this place? How do you get out of here?" Reyna turned to the girl next to her.

Al shrugged. "No clue. I just picked a direction and started following that path. I've got a kinda crude compass I made by picking apart some stuff, and I've been following North for the past two days, since I got here. Plus I'd seen a bright flash in that direction some time ago, so I'm just walking and hoping things get better. The only thing I hate is all the fruit-eating part. I haven't had such a healthy diet since I was twelve."

Reyna rolled her eyes. "Of course. Would you like some pizza?"

Al shook her head. "I'd love some cheeseburgers. With coke. And fries. But I wouldn’t complain against pizza either. But first I want to know more about this gods thing."

Reyna raised an eyebrow. "So you're sticking with me now?"

Al grinned. "Hey, if I'm going to end up in a mental asylum or in Crazy Land, I'd rather have a purple ninja wielding a gold spear on my side than be alone."

Reyna glared. "Did you just call me a purple ninja?"

Al was about to say something when a blast knocked them of their feet. "What the hell?" She squinted. "Who's the goatskin lady?"

Reyna scowled at the hooded figure in front of her. "Juno. Goddess of Terrible Plans and Bad Fashion sense. I was wondering when you'd turn up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you think? If you have any ideas, let me know. I'm free to suggestions. AND I'M SORRY BUT UPDATES WILL BE IRREGULAR, DON'T JUDGE ME.


	4. Chapter IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, new chapter! It's going a bit slow since I'm trying to introduce the OC, I swear it will pick up soon. Tell me what you think, and I'll listen to any suggestions you have.

**REYNA**

"Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. I would expect more respect from a Roman praetor. Or from any Roman for the matter. Clearly your association with Athena's whelp is corrupting you."

Reyna stood up. "You do not get to pick my friends."

"Hold on." Al raised her hand. "Will someone please explain what is going on? Do you mean Juno like _the_ Juno? Is this one big practical joke? Can we laugh already? Am I insane? And if she is a goddess, shouldn’t we, you know, be more respectful?"

Juno fixed her gaze on Al. "Believe it or not, godling, this is _very_ real. And you are part of it."

"Just my luck." Al muttered.

"Before you start to blame me, child of Bellona, it was not my idea to bring you here."

Reyna snorted. "Oh what a shocker."

Juno looked at both of them. "You will need each other's help. You cannot succeed without each other. No matter how good a fighter you are, Praetor, your skill will not get you through this. And all the intellect you have, even if good enough to make Athena sit up and notice, will not save you, godling."

Al nodded. "I figured that out myself, thanks a lot."

Juno raised her hands. A hologram flickered between them. A long black sword, longer than a meter in length, could be seen. Reyna had grown up with weapons. Looking at the blade, she could tell it was deadly. It made Riptide look positively dainty. The mere hologram seemed to suck the air from around itself. She hoped she never had to face the person who wielded it in battle.

Al frowned. "That's a sword. What's the big deal about it?"

Juno smiled. "I want you to retrieve it."

*****************************

Reyna stared at the girl trudging beside her. Al had been silent ever since their meeting with Juno. She occasionally kicked the dirt but other than that, she walked along the road, hands in her pockets.

"What?" she said.

"What?" asked Reyna.

"You're staring at me."

"It's just… you're awfully quiet."

Al looked up at her. "I…I'm trying to process." She sat down. "It's just… I grew up believing in science, you know? Earth revolves around the sun; gravity causes it to move. And suddenly here you are, and there are these gods, and now we have this quest… and everything I learnt, everything I believed in, is a lie, and we have absolutely no control over our lives… there is no logic, and there are some people who decide everything, and, well, basically all I have learnt in my life is a lie? How can I just accept all this?"

Reyna sighed and sat next to Al. "Hey. Look at me."

Al glanced at her. Reyna could feel her emotions wash over her. There was an edge of panic, disbelief, coupled with fear in her.

Al jerked back like she had been shot. "What the hell?"

Reyna stood up. "It's a gift from my mother Bellona. I can share my strength with others. I can't afford to have you panic now. We have a quest to complete."

"Right, the quest." Al muttered. She turned to face Reyna. "You know this is a mistake, right? I'm not a fighter. I mean, I took you on today, but that was, like, a one trick thing. I'm a thinker. I like machines. Computers. Physics. Mathematics. You want to understand university physics? Cool. You need help with calculus? I won't blink. Broken cars, security systems, user interfaces, viruses, bugs, hell if you want to hack the Pentagon, give me a good strong Wi-Fi connection and a couple of weeks and I'll do it. And I'm relatively good at Chemistry. But this? Fighting monsters, doing quests, I'm hopeless. I can't hold myself against muggers. What chance do I stand here?"

Reyna looked over at her. "Whatever you may feel, this is now a part of your life. You'll have to deal with it. You adapt or you die. There is no other choice."

Al got up and dusted her jeans. "Right. Adapt or die. Darwinism. I can deal with that. But you know, this…. um, you know, gods appearing"

"Is pretty much normal. Yes."

"And giving you a crazy quest?"

"Also normal."

"You know, like, hey there's this sword in this cave about fifty miles away, and for some reason we won’t tell you it’s really important, there are monsters in the way, and hey, someone might try to get it before you…, and oh, the world is ending because of this one crazy dude…"

"Is actually tame compared to others I have seen."

Al started to follow her along the path. "Can I please jump off a cliff now?"

Reyna strapped her spear to her back. "I wouldn’t worry about that. If we succeed, good, if not, then Juno will take care of our deaths for us."

"I really can't go back to fixing cars and developing security systems and drones, can I?"

"Keep walking, Al. Don’t get yourself killed, complete the quest, make everyone happy, and then maybe you'll have a chance."

"Yay. It's a merry dying day."

"Shut up, Al, or I might push you off that cliff myself."

"What a warm, friendly, loving nature you have, Praetor. I thought you could at least help a poor innocent mortal to understand what…"

Reyna ignored her and started walking away.

"Or you could ignore me and make me follow you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, another chapter done. Next chapter, we see what Percy and Gang are doing. Things will start to pick up on pace now. See ya soon.  
> PLEASE FORGIVE IRREGULAR UPDATES.


	5. Chapter V

**PERCY**

To say that the day had been weird was an understatement.

It was supposed to be a normal day, jumping into the Bay Area, gathering intel, coming back.

He shouldn’t have been captured by a group of empousai.

And he definitely shouldn’t have been able to walk out of that alive.

The visit to the water hadn’t done anything good. Apart from the fact that the Bay Area water bodies were less polluted than the East River and the Hudson, he hadn’t really been able to find anything. Everything was normal.

 _Too_ normal.

He should have at least seen _something_ out of the ordinary. He’d become used to the fishes swimming around, whispering in his mind, _Son of the Sea God. Son of the Sea God._ It was like being a celebrity expecting paparazzi, and instead finding that he was in the wrong place.

The sea always reflected Poseidon’s mood, and today the water was choppy, white foam at the tips of the waves, meaning that he probably shouldn’t go and ask his dad about the things that were happening. The Atlantic was mostly his crib, but he wasn’t taking a chance.

He stepped out into the bay. Mortals generally ignored him, but there was one little boy who started as he stepped onto the beach.

“Mommy!” he started pulling on his mother’s sleeve. “Mommy, that boy came from _under_ the water!”

“I’m sure that’s very nice, dear” she said absentmindedly glancing at her phone screen.

“But he’s completely dry!”

He’d got so distracted while looking at that interaction that he almost completely missed the blur of movement to his left.

Almost.

Too late, he realized he’d walked into an ambush.

A bunch of grinning empousai surrounded him, claws out, fangs extended. Percy looked around. The mortals had left. How had he not noticed that? Empousai were able to manipulate the Mist. The lack of mortals should have warned him. He drew out Riptide, almost at the same time when about a dozen empousai formed a circle around him.

“Fighting me right next to the sea? In my own home turf? Not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, are you?” He thrust his arms out wide. A miniature hurricane started forming around his feet, gaining momentum with time.

_Give me a few seconds. I can deal with this._

Just then another empousai joined them.

_Kelli._

“What have you got here?” the empousai broke the circle to allow her through.

She hissed in anger and turned on the other empousai. “WELL! After a whole week of nothing, you capture a demigod, and it just has to be Poseidon’s whelp?”

Percy raised his hand. “Urm, excuse me, Kelli, but are you saying that you _do not_ want to kill me?”

Kelli made a gesture, and the other empousai backed away slowly. “Do not let this mislead you, Son of the Sea. I still want to eat your flesh and drink your blood. Kelli does not forgive slights like yours easily.”

“Awesome. What’s the catch?”

Kelli’s eyes narrowed. “There is no ‘catch’ boy. The only reason you are alive is because you might just be the saving of us all. A darkness is coming, and it will overwhelm us.”

A chill went through Percy’s spine. “Camp Half-Blood. Tell me what happened to Camp Half-Blood.”

Kelli retracted her claws. “What will very soon happen to us if things don’t change. Make no mistake, Sea-spawn, we are no allies. But I will set you free this once. Go in peace, Perseus Jackson. You and your demigod friends are all that stand between us and the end. You might just be the saving of us all.”


	6. Chapter VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't really happy with the previous chapter. So I thought that maybe I should do an early update. This one is slightly longer than the other the other chapters, since here I'm trying to explain what exactly is going on. Next chapter will come soon, I promise.  
> PS: Lines in italics represent character's thoughts.

**NICO**

Something was wrong.

After what Percy, Leo and Annabeth had told him, Nico had tried to check whether the campers were dead or alive. Instead of feeling anything, he had experienced a cold, empty silence.

It was not knowing that was killing him. The uncertainty, the hope, was killing him from the inside. If they were dead, he could have mourned. If they were alive, he could have relaxed. Instead, his dreams were haunted with ruined cabins and dead campers, and a figure with blond hair and blue eyes, lying broken on the ground.

_You could have saved us. Why… why didn’t you do more?_

And each time he’d woken shivering and covered in sweat.

Maybe it was time he had some answers.

He’d also tried to find Reyna by navigating his dreams. He knew that she was alive, he could sense her life force, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find her. Another thing that was bothering him was that with all the searching, he should have at least been to the Hypnos cabin, run into Clovis’s dreams somewhere, but he hadn’t even seen a peep.

If a god had a hand in her disappearance, it was the only thing that would make sense.

Or maybe they just weren’t asleep at the same time.

Earlier when he had been the Ambassador of Pluto, he hadn’t really paid much attention to her. She was a good leader, and an excellent fighter. Other than that, she might as well have lived on the moon for all he knew.

But when they were transporting the Athena Parthenos, he’d come to know better. He’d come to admire her, respect her, as he did few others. Reyna and (as annoying it was) Coach Hedge were the first people after Jason who’d helped him to see himself as something other than a freak. Even Jason had been afraid of Nico at some point. Reyna and Hedge had seen him at his darkest and still cared for him. After San Juan, a bond had formed between them, a friendship few people could have, not one requiring words, but simply company, and the knowledge that no matter what, there would be no judgement from the other end.

He couldn’t lose another friend.

Gods, Coach Hedge. He and his wife just had a baby. They deserved some happiness. Instead they were lost, possibly forever. With the rest of Camp Half-Blood. With the boy with blue eyes who haunted Nico’s dreams.

He shadow-travelled to the Underworld. His father was sitting on the throne, black obsidian stone darker than night itself.

Then again, he’d stared into the depths of Nyx. His concept of _dark_ had changed long ago.

Nico had longed ago learned to judge Hades’ moods before speaking up. Right away, he knew that whatever was affecting the upper world was worrying him too. There were lines around his eyes, and a tightness to his jaw, and something that Nico had never seen Hades show before… fear. He’d seen the look before, on spirits appearing before his father, expecting to be punished for their deeds, like they were bracing themselves for a hit. Hades looked the same, like he was waiting for whatever had him worked up like this to come and leave him in pain.

“Nico” Hades looked at him. “What brings you here?”

As briefly as he could, Nico told Hades about al that had been going on, all the chaos that was being unleashed. At the end of it, he stood up and went to stand right in front of him.

“Father. What happened to Camp Half-Blood?”

Hades looked at Nico for a moment. Then he sighed. “Come with me, son. There are some things we need to talk about.”

**********************

Nico had never really been fond of his stepmother Persephone, but he had to admit that she knew how to decorate a garden. The Underworld gardens were full of bright flowers from gardens above. Twinkling yellow lights gave an impression of a ghostly sun. At least Persephone herself wasn’t there, it wasn’t winter, and Persephone barely spent any more time in the Underworld than she had to.

Nico couldn’t really blame her.

Hades walked through the gardens, hands clasped behind his back, chin down, as though contemplating whether or not to tell Nico what he was thinking about. Nico knew better than to prod him. Hades might be closer to his children than any other god, even Poseidon, but he was a lot less friendly than him.

Hades drew a breath. “I built this place for your stepmother, you know. It is her favorite room. I don’t know why, but this place always calms me down, even when she is not there. Perhaps it is merely her influence here.”

Nico waited.

“The war with the Titans, with Gaia, left a large number of cracks in the universe, ripping through the very fabric of existence. Being a demigod was never this difficult. You have heard about all the older heroes. Even Hercules never faced challenges this dire. But even in your lifetime, you have seen far more than he has in his immortal life.”

Nico nodded, encouraging him to continue.

“With time, I have come to a realization that perhaps these challenges were never what I thought them to be. All that is happening is far too coordinated to be a coincidence. Finally I spoke to the council of the gods on Olympus. As usual, Zeus was a jerk, far too drunk with victory to realize that perhaps we were feasting to our deaths. Poseidon never took a stand in the fights between us, instead pretending to have no part in our disagreements. But Athena listened. She too had a nagging suspicion that all that was happening was only the beginning. A test of our strength. To see what we could endure before fluttering out.”

“A few months ago, I started to detect strange anomalies everywhere. Monsters I had not seen for ages. Dead people in the living world who should never have been able to get out. Creatures so ancient that I had almost forgotten about them.”

Hades took in a deep breath.

A few days ago, I heard a prayer from your camp.”

Nico’s breath caught in his throat. Finally he would know what had happened to the camp.

“It was a cry, a desperate call for help. The camp was overrun by monsters.”

A sharp pain in his palms made Nico look down in surprise. He hadn’t known that he was clenching his hands so much.

“I sent my forces there, because no matter how ridiculous I think that place to be, the children there do not deserve a death like that.”

Nico looked up at his father in surprise. Sometimes his father showed strange kindness, yet at other times he could be so ruthless and unyielding that he often wondered whether he had any compassion at all.

Hades kept walking forward. “When they got there, there was nothing left. It was as if the place had never existed.”

“I was completely at a loss. Until I remembered something, a myth that I had almost forgotten, a story I had heard in my childhood, a theory I had dismissed as a fairytale.”

Nico looked up curiously. He had never heard Hades mention anything from his past before.

“Most people believe that the creation of the Universe came from Chaos, the eternal force of destruction. That is what the people assumed to be true. What they never noticed is that Chaos is never mentioned by name. He is always referred to as το κενό, or literally, the Void. The truth that they missed is that the force of creation is not Chaos, but the Void, from which were birthed Chaos and Cosmos, the twin forces of birth and destruction.”

“All that you see, all that you _are_ , from cell to cell is nothing but a representation of the Cosmos itself, in a way that you can comprehend. The tussle between Chaos and Cosmos is all around us, in the animals fighting for survival, in natural disasters and laws of nature, in acts of kindness and monsters of the most terrible description. Sometimes… sometimes it is said that the Void takes on a physical form, just like the gods. And sometimes it leads to the birth of new and powerful beings. His, children, you could say, are more often than not an analogy of Chaos and Cosmos. They choose their path, and they always end up opposing each other. The war between Chaos and Cosmos goes on with them too.”

“It was the way things had always been, but it is said that once, there was a time when our world stood on the brink of utter destruction. At that time, the two would clash and fight. One would raise barrier after barrier, shielding the world from the other man. And the second would destroy everything he saw, so that it was as if it had never existed. No burnt out husks, no survivors. There one day, gone the next, eerie in its very dream-like quality. Simply disappeared. I don’t remember how the war was ended, but Cosmos must have won, since we are still here. After that, for hundreds of millennia, the fighters were never human again.”

A sudden chill went through Nico. “Wait. You mean…”

“Gods have almost unlimited power, yes. But we are bound by laws. We are ancient. We can only keep repeating history, over and over, without change. But mortals, mortals they have _creativity._ Animals do not have the intelligence, and gods do not have the strength. Of all the beings in creation, humans alone have the ability to _create_ their destiny, rather than repeating the same patterns again and again. It is what makes demigods so dangerous. You stand at the crossroads, you have the best of both worlds, both the power and the ability to change history.”

“And you think that now…”

“I think that the Void has had another pair of scions. And I think that probably for the first time since thousands of years, they are human again. And I think that perhaps the human that is Chaos has started his war, while his opponent is quite possibly, lost among the seven billion people in the Earth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! Another chapter through. And yes, I know, I'm a horrible person, giving Nico nightmares about Will. And I'll admit, I stole that line from Avengers: Age of Ultron about doing more. But other than that, I own nothing. I might occasionally quote lines from books or movies. I'm thinking of making Al to be the kind of person who constantly quotes books and movies. Next chapter, we'll switch back to see what progress Reyna and Al have made. I do have a plot, but it really starts picking up after a few chapters, so bear with me.


	7. Chapter VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hey! Another chapter, but I'm afraid there's really no 'bringing the plot ahead'. It's more of a fill chapter, where I'm trying to get more of Al into the work, and show how she actually knows about Reyna. The next chapter is slightly darker, but this one is just a bit of continuation and dialogue-heaviness.

**REYNA**

Two days.

Two days of continuous walking through a damn forest, getting attacked by monsters, stopping only for a few hours at night, eating and walking again. And Al making jokes about everything that happened was _not_ helping her mood.

Al didn’t seem to mind the walking. For someone who hadn’t known she was a demigod until a few days ago, she was holding up pretty well. Reyna had tried to teach her how to wield a knife, only to find that she was very good at it already, though more suited to knocking out muggers rather than monsters.

Though, for someone who liked to crack jokes at every opportunity, she volunteered surprisingly little information about herself. Reyna only knew her name was Al, she was seventeen, no close family to speak of, and lived alone in New York. Other than that, she had been rather elusive about what she did for a living and what her full name was.

“How did you do that?” she suddenly asked.

Al seemed confused. “Do what?”

“Take me down the other day. You said you don’t really know how to fight, and you’re untrained, as you said. Then how did you manage to get me down?

Al smirked. “Is that still rankling, Praetor? If it makes you feel any better, I only learnt that move to defend myself in extreme cases. I don’t really think I’d top the New York school of street fighting. It’s actually pretty simple, you just slip past the opponent when they sidestep, and extend your hand around their neck and twist yourself around using them like a hinge. They generally stumble, or if they don’t, well you have momentum right? You use your knees to hit their backs. Gets them down every time.”

Reyna winced. “You know how much that hurts? You can’t pull the same trick every time. People will learn.”

Al laughed. “I have different priorities, Praetor.” She tapped the side of her head. “This is where I keep all the stuff I really need. It’s all sorted and stored. Like I said, I’m not really that heavy in the fighting department.”

"And how did you push me off?"

Al gave her a confused look. "What do you mean? You were the one who backed off like I had the plague."

Reyna stared at her. "I didn't. Something blew me off my feet."

"Well, it wasn't me."

Reyna decided to leave it for now. “And the knife? How are you so good at that?”

Al shrugged. “I’ve got a friend who’s a knife-thrower in a carnival. I thought it was cool, so he taught me to throw, and later I learnt to fight as well.”

Reyna raised an eyebrow. “You have a friend in a carnival?”

“Why not?”

“What exactly do you do?”

Al shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “I do lots of stuff. Developing security systems, home automation systems, repairing appliances, working at a garage… anything to get money for college. I haven’t actually made it through school, but I gave an open system exam, so I should qualify for most of the colleges in the city.”

“Huh.”

Al suddenly looked at her. “Hey, hold on a sec. I can still go to college, right? I mean, all this demigod stuff won’t mess with it?”

Reyna shook her head. “There’s a college in New Rome if you want, but you’ll have to complete at least one year of service in the legion, or get promoted from _probatio_ early from some reason, after that you’ll have to pass an exam to get into the college.”

“Huh.” Al removed her hands from her pockets. “I can handle the exam. Not so sure about the fighting in the legion part.”

Reyna shrugged. “You could join Camp Half-Blood, then, and join Camp Jupiter later. Either way, you’ll still have to learn to fight. What I really want to know is why you thought I liked Jason.”

Al grinned at her and started walking backward along the path. She had the kind of shit-eating grin that warned people that this person should never be trusted around matches or sharp things. With her angular features, short-cropped curly air and twinkling brown eyes, she could have passed for some distant cousin of Leo’s.

Actually, it was a bit creepy how similar they looked. Al’s skin tone was lighter, golden brown in color, she was taller than Leo and not scrawny like him. Other than that, she could have passed for his twin sister.

She tilted her head slightly. “That’s what you really wanted to ask me, didn’t you? Because that’s what is bothering you. You don’t care how I took you down. But you hate the fact that I could read you so well, and you’re afraid what else I know now.”

Reyna set her jaw. She was used to being the kind of person who can’t be read, and hiding her past and thoughts from everyone else. And here a stranger was looking at her and reading her thoughts and secrets like she was an open book.

Al smiled. “What was its name?”

Reyna blinked, thrown out of tandem with her thoughts. “Whose name?”

“Your horse. Or whatever strange mythical creature it was that you used to cross the Atlantic on your own, since you demigods abhor using technology.”

Reyna froze, the death of her beloved pegasus still fresh in her mind. “A pegasus.” She finally managed to say. “It was a pegasus. His name was Scipio.”

Al seemed to notice her reaction. Her smile vanished, and she looked down at her shoes. “I’m sorry.”

Reyna told herself to focus. “What else did you gather?”

Al shrugged. “You kept on leaving details, but I got some of them. Hylla is your older sister, you think of Nico di Angelo like a younger brother, and as annoying as he is, you are still friends with Coach Hedge because he’s a good but slightly violent guy at heart, and… um… the Seven of the Prophecy are your closest friends after these two, but you aren’t really _that_ close. I’m guessing things are weird with Piper, especially now that Jason is you know, dead, you don’t really know Percy that well, Annabeth is mostly in New York, Hazel and Frank still see you as their boss and not their friend even though Frank is a Praetor too, and you still haven’t really forgiven Leo for blowing up New Rome. That’s about all, I think. I got a few other things, but they’re mostly conjectures.”

Reyna kept a straight face. _Stay cool. She’s just guessing. No way you let slip in all these details while telling her the story._

“Oh and one more thing.” Al raised her finger. “You are currently asking yourself to stay calm, and that I must be bluffing. You’ve got a good poker face, but it’s not _that_ good, you know.”

Reyna gave in. “All right, how the hell did you get all this?”

Al smiled like she’d been given a prize. “Well, to start off, when you described the story, you tried to mention Jason as little as possible. That’s because you liked him. You like to be as fair as possible, so even if you disliked him, you’d have mentioned him more. I mean, you mentioned _Octavian_ more. And I’m guessing you would have loved to gut him with your spear. But your need to hide your real thoughts was more than your need to be fair.”

Reyna started to defend herself, but Al held up her hand.

“Let me finish. You were slightly softer when you talked about Nico, a bit exasperated when you mentioned Coach Hedge but not angry, so you weren’t really mad at him. From what Juno said, you and Annabeth get along, but hey, she lives in New York, and you guys aren’t big on technology. You were distant while talking about Frank, Hazel, and Percy, like you know them, but not well enough to hang out with them. You completely left Leo out of your narrative except at the ‘blowing up New Rome part’ and the part about how he died and came back, so… figures. The Hylla part was obvious. Most of it though… I can’t really explain the whole reasoning. I mean, it’s easy to say that two plus two is four, but explaining _why_ it is four is a huge headache.”

Reyna realized that they had stopped walking. She really couldn’t think of anything to say to Al at the moment. She suddenly didn’t look like Leo, but more like Annabeth, with the same intense gaze that made you feel you were under a microscope, and the person in front would read out your entire life and you couldn’t do anything about it.

Al suddenly laughed, breaking the tension in the atmosphere. She clapped Reyna on the back. “Cheer up, Praetor. I won’t say stuff like this anymore if you feel so glum.”

Reyna frowned. If there was one thing about Al that made her curious, it was her old-fashioned English. She was pretty sure no one said ‘glum’ outside of Enid Blyton books anymore.

“What’s it with the weird English? You’ve lived in New York for five years, right?”

Al grinned. “What’s it with the vague evasion of what happened in San Juan? It isn’t really in the way from Portugal to the States, and you aren’t telling me something.”

Reyna clenched her hands. “That’s none of your business.”

Al raised her hands in a placating gesture. “Woah, chill it Praetor. Nothing personal. And to answer your question, my first language isn’t English, but I spent some time in London with my parents. Plus, my mom was an English Teacher. Not to mention my annoyingly persistent second grade teacher who kept badgering me until I started reading in earnest. And if you had gone to a school that kept Shakespeare and Roald Dahl in the syllabus in the same year, you’d get some pretty weird words in your diction too.”

Reyna sighed. “Then why didn’t you just say that?”

Al was walking backwards on the path again, hands shoved in her jacket pockets. “What’s the fun in that?”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “Wow, with your need to act all mysterious, you could just call yourself a psychic and get some voodoo dolls for your act.”

Al scoffed. “Meh. No such thing as psychics. Or voodoo. And just saying, those are two completely different things.”

Reyna was just about to say something when she felt a stab of pain in her neck and she fell to her knees. She barely saw a large fist hitting Al on the side of her face before the world went black before her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so that's it for now, gang. By the way, I'll soon need a prophecy for this series, and since I suck at poetry, I'd love it if someone could help me with it. On the other hand, I might just not have a prophecy at all. Tell me what y'all think about this. I've got a plot in mind, but the finer details are still sketchy, so I'm open to suggestions. Updates might be slower from now on, since I plan to have one chapter ready before posting the previous one, and because agh, school projects. Forgive the delays.


	8. Chapter VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! New chapter. It's slow, but things have been hectic lately. Updates might be slower, but I will update at least once a week, I promise!

**REYNA**

Of course, she _had_ to have dreams.

She couldn’t even be knocked out in peace.

In her dream, she stood on the edge of a cliff. It wasn’t an ordinary cliff. Instead of land below, there was nothing. A large expanse of nothingness stretched below the surface. Not just darkness, but _nothingness,_ sucking everything into it and dissolving it to atoms. She could feel the tug of the chasm beneath her, pulling her closer and closer, bringing her to almost the very edge, a presence so old and powerful that it was impossible to ignore. The whole world around her was in darkness, broken only by flashes of lightning. There was no sound except for the roar of water from somewhere behind her.

She felt a presence next to her. It was a young man, around twenty years old. He had curly black hair, and chocolaty brown eyes. He was pale and drawn, so you could see the outline of his cheekbones. He must have been handsome at some point, but now he looked tired and haggard. He was dressed entirely in black, from his cloak to his trousers to his hood, and even the staff in his hand.

He suddenly turned to her. “Do you see?” his voice was a hoarse whisper. “It’s happening again. He is coming back.”

Reyna felt the fear growing within her. “Who? Who is coming? What are you fighting?”

Before he could reply, she heard a laugh from behind her. She turned to see another man behind her, about the same age as the other one. He was beautiful, the way an angel is beautiful, like an ethereal being that could never be touched. He had a pale face, snow white hair, sharp cheekbones, and obsidian black eyes. He was dressed in black too, but his robes seemed to be _made_ of darkness, twisting around him like liquid cloth.

“I think he means me, my dear. My time has come. After all” he smiled the way Lucifer may have smiled before he fell from heaven. “I am inevitable.”

The first man raised his staff. “Never. Not while I live. I’ll stop you.”

The second simply raised his hands, darkness swirling around him. “You are welcome to try, little half-brother.”

The first man turned to Reyna one last time. “It must happen again. The final battle. It must be here.”

Then the two clashed, and the cliff shuddered and broke apart, falling into the chasm. Lightning flashed across the pitch-black sky and there was a roar of water, which was the last thing she heard before plummeting into the vortex.

**************************

“Reyna! Reyna!” her name shouted urgently made her look around to see who was calling.

“Nico!” she felt relief as she saw the familiar figure of the Italian boy next to her.

“Reyna, thank the gods. Are you all right?”

She started nodding. “Yes, I’m fine. Nico, I have so many questions…”

“There’s no time, Reyna!” Nico shouted. “I can barely hold this connection together! Tell us where you are, we’ll get you…” his voice trailed off and the image flickered. Too late, she realized he was fading.

“I was taken by Juno! Nico, what on earth is going on? Whom are we facing?”

The image flickered away completely. She barely caught him say one word before he disappeared. “ _Chaos…_ ”

****************************

In another of her dreams, she stood on a beach.

She didn’t know where she exactly was, but she was sure that she hadn’t been here before. There sea was dark blue, beating against the golden-brown sand. The temperature was about eighty degrees, even though it was evening, and the sun was setting down over the sea.

A man stood at the seashore. There was a shorter figure next to him, a child, probably no more than eight or nine years old, but the black hoodie made it impossible to tell whether it was a boy or a girl.

The man was about a few inches shorter than six feet, straight black hair and blue-grey eyes, tanned skin and a frown on his face.

The kid next to him spoke up. “But why do we have to leave? I like it here! I don’t want to go to London or Paris! I want to stay here. This is home.”

The man laughed bitterly. “There is no place called ‘home’ for people like us, kid. It’s a tough break, but that’s how it is.”

The kid crossed his (or her?) arms. “People like us? There’s no difference between us and the other people. Mom used to say that we are what we choose to be. You are a con by _choice_. You could give it up. We could stay.”

The man shook his head. “Your mom…” he sighed. “Go play with your sister, Ry. This is non-negotiable.”

The kid stiffened. “Don’t call me that. And you still haven’t told me how we are different. We are just like everyone else here.” The kid stormed off.

The man kept watching the sea. “If only you knew, kid. If you had any idea…” he shook his head and the scene faded.

***********************

The next time she looked around, the surroundings had changed. She stood in front of large double doors, made of black stone, several hundred feet tall, dwarfing even Olympus. She touched the stone. It was firm and cool to touch. She pressed them with her hand, and the doors slowly opened into the darkness.

She stepped into long hall and light of different colors fell on her from niches in the walls and the roof.

_Wait. Niches in the roof?_

She looked again at the multi-colored lights gently shining around her. It took her a second to realize that they were not lights but stars, red, blue, and yellow, light from thousands of miles away, travelling across vast expanses to illuminate this vast expanse. She remembered when Annabeth had dragged all of the Seven, along with her and Nico to a planetarium to see some science documentary. Most of them had been awed but confused, Frank had been reading everything he could find, Leo was too busy clowning around to see anything, and she was pretty sure that Percy had spent more time looking at Annabeth than the documentary.

As she started walking down the hallway, she noticed that things were not always the same. The light that she saw was coming from far ahead of her. She was standing in pitch blackness, with no way to see right next to her. There was only one thing to do, so she started walking ahead.

As soon as she started walking she noticed some differences in the surroundings around her. It was as if the hall were splitting into two, one wall starting to form a soupy mist next to her, while on the other wall there was still a vast, empty darkness. But it was below her feet that the most amazing things were happening. As she went forward, the cloudy mist seemed to start separating, forming different bodies. Further ahead, she saw great clouds moving across black space, spinning in some parts as they slowly solidified into great balls of fire.

_The birth of a star._

Reyna drew in a breath. Seeing a documentary about it was one thing, having it happen in front of her was another. For the first time, she realized how old the universe really was. Each step covered thousands of years, and yet the hall seemed to go on forever.

“Impressive, isn’t it? The Hall of the Ages. And you haven’t even properly entered it yet. This nothing, a momentary speck on the expanse of time.”

Reyna spun around. A man was standing a few feet away from her at the center of the path. Just looking at him made her feel strange, like the molecules in her body were set to vibrate. He looked like a normal person, but every time she looked at him his appearance changed a little, so at the end of a couple of seconds she could say that his face had changed completely, but it happened so subtly that she didn’t even notice it.

“Who are you?” her voice was barely a croak.

The man smiled. “What do you think?”

Reyna looked at him. “You aren’t Chaos.”

The man shook his head. “No. But Chaos is part of me. I am everything that is has been, and shall ever be.” Suddenly he smiled, and Reyna _knew_ that smile, she _knew_ it, but she just couldn’t place it. “ _You_ are part of me too, Praetor.”

Reyna shook her head. “I’m not touching that vague statement with a ten-foot pole. Why am I here?”

The man’s face was grave. “Because you have a role to play in the war that is coming. My children will fight the war, but when you make your decision, remember this place. Remember this hall.” He started to fade.

“Wait! What decision? Remember what?”

“You will know soon. But for now, I think you have other problems to deal with.” He waved his hand, and the scene vanished.

******************************

She felt groggy as she woke, like she had when she woke in San Juan. Which probably meant that she had been drugged, also like San Juan.

Unfortunately for her, these captors were not as sloppy as the Hunters of Artemis. Her hands were completely bound to the pole at her back, and she couldn’t budge an inch. Her head was uncovered, and the place seemed to spin when she raised it. It took her a few moments to understand what was going on. By then a large shape stood in front of her. It was a Cyclops, and Reyna had a feeling that this one was not as friendly as Tyson.

He grinned, and his single eye shone brightly, as if he were delivering excellent news. “You woke up before the other one! You are going to be cooked first!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Another one done. Thinking of a plot is one thing, writing it down is another. But, important note, I really, really need help with the prophecy thing. If any of you are good at stuff like that, write down in the comments or mail me at tonystarkrocks3000@gmail.com. I'll give you an idea of what I have in mind, and maybe you could help me out of the hole I'm in. (Like I said in the last note, I'm TERRIBLE at poetry, but so is Apollo, I mean Lester, so I shouldn't be worried). I'd also appreciate a beta reader, so if any of you are up for it, contact me. Other than that, enjoy!


	9. Chapter IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Here's another chapter for y'all. It's a slightly non-eventful fic from Frank's POV. You know what, I'm rambling. Ignore me.

**FRANK**

Frank paused with his hand on the handle to the door of the Praetors’ office.

He really did need some papers from his desk, but he didn’t at _all_ want to face Aurum and Argentum. He had never been fond of the metal dogs (all right, he was terrified of them) and their earlier hyper tearing and scratching had _not_ endeared them to him.

But for the past two days, they had been lying near Reyna’s desk, paws over their eyes, refusing to leave the place of their beloved master. Every time Frank opened the doors, they would eagerly shoot to their feet and look around, and every time they saw Frank, they would give a whine and sit back down, looking disappointed. Despite everything, Frank felt sorry for them.

He was just about to open the door when he saw Hazel coming up to him.

“ _Ave,_ Praetor Zhang.” She smiled, standing in attention, teasing him.

“Stop it. Stop it.” he waved a hand. He was still new to being a Praetor, and the attention often made him uncomfortable. Which meant that all his friends (except Nico and Reyna) loved to salute him and address him as ‘Praetor Zhang’ just to see him squirm in awkwardness, which Leo and Percy found hilarious, the rest saw as amusing, and Hazel seemed to find cute.

Hazel laughed. She took his hand. “Summoning the courage to face Reyna’s pets?”

Frank groaned. “You know, in my case the phrase ‘being thrown to the dogs’ takes on a whole new meaning.”

Hazel smiled. She looked cute when she smiled, Frank noted. Her entire face seemed to light up, and she seemed to glow like the gold that she could bring up to the surface. And…

_Whoa. Focus._

“We’ll figure everything out. Whatever is going on, we’ll get through it.”

Frank nodded. “Yeah. Okay. What did Ella say?”

“For once, she has nothing to say. I tried everything. Apart from some random lines from Shakespeare and Dickens, she has nothing to say.”

Frank felt disappointed. “Nothing else?”

Hazel shook her head. “Nothing. Apparently she has taken a fancy to ‘A Tale of Two Cities’.”

Just then Piper came racing towards them. “Hey guys. You might want to join the rest of us. Nico is back, and he’s got a wild story to tell.”

*************************

Frank looked around at his friends gathered round the table. Everyone was silent after Nico and Percy told what they had found.

Finally Leo leaned against the table. “So… what you are saying is that there are these two dudes out there who are screwing around with our world, and if one of them wins, we get a happily ever after for a few millennia, but if the _other_ dude wins, we all get split into atoms.”

Nico twisted his skull ring. “Not the way I would put it, but yes.”

Percy frowned. It was an odd expression to see on someone as laid back as him. “What about Camp Half-Blood? You’re saying it’s gone, like, forever?”

Nico seemed to suddenly become interested in his shoes. “I don’t really know, Percy. Even Hades only knows what he told me. If Hades doesn’t know, then I don’t know who does.”

Annabeth shook her head. “None of this makes sense. Before Prometheus gave humans fire, we were pretty much gerbil. How could humans affect the course of history so much?”

Frank suddenly had an idea he didn’t like. “Hold on. There were four ages of man earlier, right? But the age of the Titans was called the Golden Age.” He turned to Percy. “Chiron told you that was a misnomer, right? He said it was dark and chaotic. What if it wasn’t dark and chaotic because of Kronos, but because of this war that was fought? Maybe people were more advanced than we thought in those days. No one knows, right? History is written by the victors. Maybe Zeus rewrote history to make him look like the good guy. Maybe people were just not important enough for Kronos to mess around with. Maybe some smart guys survived. We don’t really know, right?”

Annabeth pressed her lips together. “It’s possible. We can’t assume anything. Leo, how are we with the communication problems?”

Leo stopped fiddling with wires. “I don’t really know. It’s like the communications nearby are working, but the further you go away from the point of connection, the worse it becomes. Like, you have a bar of network, but you’re going further and further away from a cell phone tower.”

Piper frowned. “And Hera’s involved somehow. Just what we needed, Her Bovine Majesty coming to mess stuff up.”

Leo snorted. “ _Her Bovine Majesty?_ What next? Her Cowly Highness? _”_

Percy grinned. “Her Hysterically-messed-up Holiness.”

Leo banged his fist on the table. “Her…”

Annabeth raised her hands. “All right, stop it, you two. Hera is a large headache, we got it. Can we please focus here?”

Percy leaned back in his chair. “Okay. But I won this.”

Leo pouted like a little five-year old. “All right, mother.” He turned to Percy. “You’re on, Water Boy.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes. Frank admired her ability to not start banging her head on the table.

“I think we should try to contact Olympus. Get guidance. Find what is going on. Some reinforcements wouldn’t hurt either.”

_Holy Mars. What would it take for him to remember that Nico was in the room too? Sometimes he felt like putting a bell around the dude’s neck just to remember that he existed._

Frank wouldn’t deny it. Hazel’s brother still gave him the freaky-deakies. He literally seemed to melt into shadows wherever he went, so it was pretty disconcerting when he’d suddenly speak.

Hazel nodded. “That’s a good idea. So we Iris Message…”

“No.” Percy cut her off. “I’m tired of being lied to and manipulated by the gods and being told that it was ‘all for the best’. If the gods want us to help, they better fricking sit down and _talk._ No half-truths. No secrets. We go to New York and ask, hell no, we _demand_ to know what is going on. If we…”

He never got to finish that if, because just then Tyson came rumbling in. Rumbling. There was no other word for the way that guy moved. He saw Percy and grinned. He went over to him and Annabeth and crushed them in a hug. “Big brother! I have news.”

_Right. Tyson was so huge, one often forgot that he was Percy’s little brother, not the other way round._

Percy’s face had turned red because of the pressure. “Okay, big guy.” He patted Tyson’s arm. “But first, can you let go of us?”

Tyson let them go and they dropped back into their seats, gasping for air.

“Hey Tyson.” Hazel waved her hand. “What happened?”

“Oh.” His face fell. “A new demigod came. And he has lots of bad monsters behind him.”

**************************

‘A lot of monsters’ was an understatement.

The entrance of Caldecott Tunnel was _crawling_ with monsters after the poor dude. He didn’t even have a proper weapon; he was just whacking the monsters with a long pole whenever they got close.

The two demigods guarding the entrance were doing their best to help him. At least Dakota was. The other guard, a tall thin girl with pink hair and eyebrows, was too busy winding her manibulasta to notice anything. Frank never understood why anyone would use a manibulasta in battle willingly. Those things could be deadly, but they were so damn slow, it kind of beat the point of a fight if your weapon wasn’t ready when you needed it.

He also wondered about the pink hair and eyebrows.

He didn’t really get the chance to wonder much, though. The horde of incoming monsters was enough to grab his attention for now. There were so many of them, the guy was probably the kid of one of the Big Three.

Or it could be the weirdness all around them.

There was something else that was bothering him about the monsters. Even as he shot his arrows, he could tell that something was off. The monsters weren’t the usual ones he knew, and the monster-identifying class was one of the few he hadn’t messed up (probably because there was nothing to knock over). Besides, these monsters weren’t turning to dust like they were supposed to, instead they dissolved into shadows, not like the Underworld creatures or hellhounds, but more like the darkness was sucking them inside itself.

Looking around, he saw Percy fighting with a large monster which looked like the minotaur, but with the head of a wolf. Hazel was sparring with a pair of what looked like dracaenae but they had paper-like skin and their legs weren’t mismatched. Every monster was like that, familiar but strange at the same time.

He saw Dakota grabbing the new demigod by the hand and pushing him toward the tunnel out of the corner of his eye as he shot another arrow. The crowd of monsters had started to thin out, leaving a few stragglers behind, which they soon took care of.

Frank shot one last arrow and rested his bow against his shoulder. Leo blasted a monster with fire and it promptly fell onto Nico’s extended sword, turning into shadows. A couple of others turned and fled. The tunnel was finally clear.

_Whew. Finally done._

Hazel turned to look at him. Her smile faltered. “Frank, watch out!”

Frank barely turned around before a large weight knocked him onto his back. His bow was crushing his back. He looked up to see a large hound on top of it. It was as large as a lion, with coal black body and stony dark eyes. It bared its teeth two inches from him, and he could smell the stench of rotten flesh from it. He closed his eyes and tried to turn into a dragon, which wasn’t easy with a large hound snapping at his face.

He’d turned halfway when the hound went in for the kill. The jaws snapped at his face.

_Really, after everything, I’m gonna die as shish kebab for a large dog? Wait… what the hell?_

The hound let out a surprised whine and dissolved into shadows. He saw Hazel and Percy running towards him. Hazel came first. “Frank! Are you all right?”

Percy extended his hand. “Man, I thought that you were done for. Next time you decide to go all Katniss on the monsters, stay close to someone, okay?”

Frank too his hand and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll…”

“WOOHOO! Did you see that? Just took that one out like paper!” the pink haired girl was grinning from ear to ear. Apparently she _had_ managed to finish winding her manibulasta after all.

Hazel sighed. “Thanks, Lavinia. But could you _please_ use a weapon that is a bit faster the next time?”

The girl, whose name was apparently Lavinia, spread her hand out wide. “Come on Centurion! Lighten up a bit! It worked! You’ve been spending too much time with Praetor Stiff!”

Frank felt a bit offended. _Praetor Stiff?_ Then he realized that Lavinia wasn’t even looking at him. She was talking about Reyna.

He wondered what Reyna would have to say if she came to know her new nickname.

Leo choked. “ _Praetor Stiff?_ ”

“Come on, everyone.” Annabeth and the others had joined them. “Let’s go in and talk. And Leo, I dare you to say that in front of her dogs.”

Leo wisely decided not to say anything.

***************************

As they entered the Camp boundaries, Frank got a proper look at the new demigod for the first time. He was a little older than most, around eighteen years old, six feet tall, with dark eyes and messy black hair and a chiseled face. He had a long cut on his left hand from the fight, and his clothes were dirty and torn. He was leaning against a wall, but he straightened up as they came closer.

Frank extended his hand. “Welcome to Camp Jupiter. I am Praetor Zhang. What’s your name?”

The boy shook his hand. “Ryan. Ryan McConnell.”

“Welcome to Camp, Ryan.”

*****************************

Two hours later, the complete legion was ready for the war games. Funnily, ever since three out of the Seven for the quest had been from the Fifth Cohort, it wasn’t such a loser anymore.

Frank had a sudden feeling of déjà vu when he saw the legion assembled. It was the same as it had been more than a year ago, with the First and Second Cohorts defending, while the Third, Fourth and Fifth Cohorts attacked. Percy wasn’t in the lineup for the Fifth Cohort, and Hazel was the Centurion now, but otherwise all was as it had been.

It almost made Frank want to get off his pegasus and stand next to Hazel.

“All right, legionnaires, attention!” Frank made his way to the front. “We have a new demigod who wishes to join us.” He indicated towards Ryan, who was standing awkwardly looking uncomfortable. “Who would like to vouch for him?”

A voice piped up from the First. “Godly parent?”

Frank tried to see who it had been. “Undetermined.”

“Isn’t he a little old for that?” a girl from the Third raised her hand.

Frank narrowed his eyes. “Is that a problem, legionnaire?”

The girl gulped. “No, Praetor.”

He placed his hand on his pegasus’s reins. “Would _you_ like to vouch for him?”

She shook her head frantically. “No, Praetor.”

“Then I’d advise you not to make unnecessary comments.”

_Gods, I sound like Reyna._

The fact that he was undetermined _did_ bother Frank. After all, you were supposed to be claimed at thirteen. Eighteen was way above that mark.

Suddenly a voice came from the Fifth. “Oh for gods’ sake.” The pink haired girl ( _what was her name again? Right, Lavinia_ ). “Y’all are making it sound like it’s such a big deal. It’s cool. I’ll vouch for him.”

A few legionnaires were looking uncomfortable with the break in decorum. Some snickers could be heard throughout the room. “Right, like anyone would want to be vouched for by someone as crazy as _her.”_

Frank raised his hand for silence. “Very well. Lavinia…”

“Asimov” she piped up.

“Right. Lavinia Asimov, do you agree to vouch for this demigod?”

Lavinia rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

He looked towards Ryan. “Then you may come forth.”

Ryan stepped forward, looking like he wanted nothing more than to turn on his heels and run.

Frank could relate to that.

Frank fished out a probatio tablet from his pocket and handed it to him. “Welcome to the Legion, Ryan. You may now join the Fifth Cohort.”

There were some muted cheers from the Fifth. Frank sighed. The Fifth wasn’t a loser anymore, but it still wasn't very popular.

“All right everyone, you know the rules for the war games…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for now. The next chapter will probably be a minor character's POV. Not sure yet. I'll try to update as soon as I can.


	10. Chapter X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New month, new chapter. Shoutout to IzzyMRDB, whose wonderful one-shot Envy is not green (but pale like that the corpses) gave me the idea for this chapter. Jakob Pichler completely belongs to her, and I owe this chapter to her. I'd recommend reading that one here https://archiveofourown.org/works/25890079 . I tried to write this on my own, but I realized that I wasn't doing her story justice. I ended up almost writing Jakob's thoughts word to word in this chapter. But the rest of it is mine. Adios!  
> BTW: To those who are wondering, I did nothing without the author's permission.

**DAKOTA**

Dakota was feeling a little elated as he led the Fifth Cohort back to the barracks. For the fourth time in a row, the Fifth had managed to beat the other Cohorts in the war games. Not to mention that they had a new recruit who was pretty good with a sword.

Dakota took his first good look at the new demigod. He was much older than most of the demigods that came here. Rarely ever did someone above fifteen join the Camp. The last exception had been Percy Jackson, who had been sixteen. Jason Grace had been the youngest, joining when he was three or four. Eighteen _was_ a little above the mark. He’d be out of the legion by the time he got out of probatio.

What the hell, he figured. “Hey dude.” He slipped next to Ryan in the line. “No offence, man, but I had a little question for you.”

Ryan shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“Where were you all this time? We haven’t had anyone join the Legion so late. I mean, Percy Jackson did, but that’s cause the gods decided to screw with his life.”

“Yeah right, Percy Jackson this, Percy Jackson that. He’s like McDonald’s, everywhere you go, there he is.” This came from a shorter blond boy walking along with them.

Dakota sighed. “What’s your problem with him, Jakob?”

The boy scowled. “I told you to call me Jake.”

Dakota started walking a bit faster. The son of Discordia was all right, but he tended to be a bit disruptive. Which meant, of course, that he had to land in the Fifth Cohort.

Ryan walked faster to catch up with him. “Hey. I didn’t really get it. Lupa told me about the Seven and their quest, and the whole Gaia debacle, and they seem like heroes to me. Why does he have a problem with that?”

Dakota shook his head. “Don’t ask me. No one can figure that dude out. All that we know is that he’s a son of Discordia.”

Ryan frowned. “Son of who?”

They’d reached the barracks by then. “Discordia. Goddess of strife and discord. Her Greek form is Eris.”

Ryan shrugged. “If I had that goddess for a mom, I’d be pretty bitter with the son of Neptune too.” They passed through the door. “Who do you figure my godly parent is?”

Dakota frowned. “You’re here now. You’ll know soon. I think it’s a minor god or goddess, since you’re older than most of the kids here, but haven’t been eaten by a monster yet.”

Ryan looked around at the bunks. “Wow, I survived to eighteen, so I’m lucky. You guys really don’t expect much from life. Where do I get a bunk?”

Dakota laughed. “It’s true. Most of us don’t really get much to show for a life.” He walked over to a bunk. “Good news, we have an empty bunk.”

Ryan narrowed his eyes. “What is the bad news?”

Dakota tried to give his friendliest smile. “You get the one next to Jakob Pichler.”

Ryan shrugged. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Dakota sighed. He really needed some Kool-Aid.

*******************************

The night was silent. The only sound was the breathing of all the people sleeping in their bunks. From far away, he could hear the chirping of cicadas. The whole place was dark, since they didn't have bulbs. He could only make out vague shadows of the demigods around him. From the window, he could see the stars shining outside.

He regretted the Kool-Aid. He shouldn’t have drunk so much of it just before sleeping, and now sleep was far away from his hyperactive brain. But he didn’t really feel like getting up either.

“Hey.” He heard Ryan’s voice from the bunk next to him. “Why do you have such a problem with Percy Jackson? Doesn’t that make you sound a little jealous?”

Dakota crossed his fingers. _Talk about dropping a hammer on your own toes._

He heard Jakob shift in his bed. “I’m bitter.” He heard him say. “I’m aware enough of what I’m thinking to realize exactly how I’m feeling, but I don’t care.”

“The truth is that they are ungrateful. Don’t they know how much the rest of us long to be in their shoes? All we want is _one_ quest. Or even a monster. Just one chance to prove ourselves, to show that we’re worthy.”

Jakob was continuing. “But they get that chance. Quest after quest, monster after monster… yet they complain. They always complain and lament and hate the gift that they’re given. They curse the gods, and the oracle, and the Fates.”

“A single quest, a single monster, means a home in Elysium, means happiness, while otherwise you get into Asphodel for eternity. You stay insignificant, forever.”

“Yet they smile sadly and tell us that being a hero isn’t a good idea, that there’s too much to lose, that it _hurts_ too much. And everyone just blindly nods and follows them because they’re _heroes_. They don’t know the truth. Every time one of them tries to keep me safe, it makes my blood boil. I want to scream in their faces. We’re all going to die anyways. But I don’t say anything. I can't say anything. Because the people who tell us not to be like them are the people who run the Camp. I just have to keep my mouth shut and nod along to whatever they say.”

“One day, it’ll be my turn, my quest, my time. Death will come for me, but I’ll be ready.” He paused. “And I won't be ungrateful.”

*************************

Later that night, the Centurion of the Fifth Cohort was still awake, thinking about the conversation he had heard.

He had never truly given thought to life after death, to the time that he would spend in the Land of the Dead.

You lived, you fought, you tried your best, but at the end of the day, you saw what fate you would get and accepted it with open arms.

_A Roman does not fight death, he greets it with open arms as a friend._

And yet… and yet when had heroes simply _accepted_ their death? They were heroes _because_ they had survived the unsurvivable.

Percy Jackson, Jason Grace, Leo Valdez, Frank Zhang, Hazel, Levesque, Annabeth Chase, Piper McLean, others associated with their quest, like Reyna, Nico di Angelo, even that goddamned faun… they all had Elysium waiting for them.

But hadn’t they all broken the rules?

Percy Jackson had been nothing but trouble since the day he’d set foot in camp. Jason Grace had been more subtle, but even he’d chafed and skirted around the rules. Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque had never fit well here. Leo Valdez had bombed New Rome. Nico di Angelo had spied on the Camp. Even Reyna, who would stick to the rules until it killed her, had simply decided to break half a dozen laws on the word of a proclaimed enemy.

But what about him?

What about Gwen, Bobby, and the dozens of others who had tried just as hard, who’d followed the rules without question, who’d fought just as much? Why would they be remembered?

At the end of it all, what difference had he made?

*************************

The next day, the new demigod grabbed him before breakfast. Dakota groaned internally. He hadn’t slept well the day before, and talking to him before he had downed some Kool-Aid was really high on the list of not-to-do things for him.

“Hey, look.” He seemed slightly hesitant, like he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to have this conversation..

_Please don’t. just let me get some caffeine into my system and then I’ll dance a jig with you if you want._

He finally seemed to throw caution to the wind. “Listen, yesterday Jakob said some things-”

Dakota stopped him before he could continue. “I know what he said. I couldn’t sleep either.”

Ryan looked uncomfortable. “Then you know-”

Dakota nodded. “Look, Jakob isn’t a bad guy, but he _really_ tends to get bitter about stupid things. It’s in his nature. Don’t pay any attention to him. Those guys are really cool, don’t sweat it. Jakob is new, he hasn’t seen war. He hasn’t seen his friends die or watched them dying in front of him while you’re standing by helplessly. Quests and monsters may be glory for him, but there’s also a lot of grief and guilt involved. Just chill and enjoy, most probably by next year you’ll be out of this all.”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

Dakota watched him walk away back to the breakfast tables. Otherwise, the day was as ordinary as it ever got at Camp Jupiter. He watched the groups of demigods sitting at each table. The kids with the same Cohort or godly parent were sitting together. The Apollo kids had decided that they’d go through the entire Led Zeppelin playlist today. Even as he walked to the table where Bobby and his other friends were waiting for him, he could hear them singing Stairway to Heaven behind him.

_Ooh it makes me wonder_

_Ooh it really makes me wonder…_


	11. Chapter XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is basically just a chapter to lighten things up after the last one.  
> OR  
> That one chapter where everything is fine and nothing hurts... except maybe Al's head and her wounded pride.

**REYNA**

Reyna tried to gather her wits.

Being cooked to be eaten was definitely _not_ her idea of an ideal death.

She was a warrior, but she would like to go down in a proper fight, not like this, bound and trussed like dinner. Or dying _for_ someone’s dinner. Especially not tied at a pole, with ropes around her wrists, feet and knees.

Her bonds were strong, and her weapons had been taken away and were lying in a corner. The cyclops was a little taller than Tyson, so he must be pretty young. He was grinning at her like he was delivering the best news in the world. Al was lying knocked out next to a rock, a large bruise over her right eye and forehead.

_Try to talk your way out of this._

She looked up at the Cyclops. “What is your name again?”

The Cyclops’ smile widened even more. “My name is Grothos!”

Reyna tried to maintain a neutral face. “Right, Grothos. What is it that you are exactly doing here?”

The Cyclops eye brightened. He raised his hand, which contained a tangled mess of wires. “I make robots!”

“Right. Robots.”

“Yes! They do all my work! Then I sit and make more machines!” he puffed his chest. “My Mama so happy! She says I bad Cyclops, but she still likes me!”

Reyna swallowed. So there were _two_ Cyclops, and her hands were bound. Not nice odds. If her arms were free, she’d still have a very good chance, even with no weapons and an unconscious friend. Sadly, she was fixed to the pole.

But she’d spent months on a pirate ship. Her hands were already gently twisting, trying to get rid of the bonds.

_A few minutes. Please, just give me a little time._

“You’re kidding, right?”

Reyna turned in surprise. Al was sitting up by the rock, holding a hand to her head. Her other hand was bound to the rock.

She pointed to something that looked like a large rectangular box with wires.

“You call that abomination a _robot?_ I did better when I was still using my sing song kiddy voice. And what kind of name is _Grothos_?”

Reyna groaned. _Damn you, Al. Go ahead and annoy him._

Al pointed at another work. “That wiring there, it’s so sloppy, I swear my grandma would be better at it, God rest her soul.”

Grothos lumbered over to where Al was sitting. “You think you can do better than me?”

Al raised her chin defiantly. “I bet I can leave your little toys in the dust. You let my hands free, and I’ll show you how the real thing is made.”

“Do you think I’m a fool? You’ll try to escape as soon as I set your hands free.”

Al snorted. “Please. I can't fight to save my life. Purple cape ninja over there does the fighting. I’m unarmed, you can stand watch over me, and I’m not leaving without the scary Praetor over there.”

Reyna scowled. _Purple cape ninja?_

Grothos seemed to consider it. Then he raised his hand and snapped the rope tying Al. She gave a yelp and rubbed her wrist. “Jesus, big dude. Take it easy, will ya?”

“Just get on with it.” He growled.

Reyna noticed that he didn’t seem to be such an idiot anymore. For Al’s sake, she prayed that she wasn’t bluffing.

_Almost there. Give me a couple of minutes._ Her bonds were almost free.

Al was definitely _not_ bluffing. Reyna watched, fascinated, as she grabbed the nearest tools and started putting things together in a better way. It was as though the tools were part of her hands, an extension of her wrists, joining, twisting, pressing wires together.

_Damn it._

She had been growing sloppy. The last knot had been a slipknot, and she hadn’t noticed it. Her hands had twisted the wrong way, and now the rope was pulling painfully at her wrists. Any movement that she made just tightened the knots. All that she’d be able to do was break her wrists, which she didn’t really want to do. She gritted her teeth and tried to push her wrists inwards, trying to loosen the bonds. But she knew that she’d lost precious time. The other Cyclops would be coming any time now.

“Done!” Al proudly held up a device that looked much better than Grothos’ s. Reyna was no judge of machinery, but at least the wires weren’t sticking out and the parts didn’t seem to be about to fall off.

Al waved her hands vaguely. “Do you have like, a control, or a computer, or something I can program it from?

Grothos lumbered over to a small pile of machinery at the side. He started to pull apart the pieces, no doubt trying to find whatever Al was asking for. Apparently he wasn’t really that bright, because he left Al completely open.

Al moved faster than lightning. Before the Cyclops had even found what he was looking for, she’d grabbed Reyna’s abandoned spear. She was darting over to her when suddenly Grothos turned. He was on her in a moment. Reyna was still struggling with her bonds.

Al must have seen something in her eyes, because she turned and pointed the spear the other way.

Grothos _really_ wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, because he managed to impale himself on the spear.

He roared in agony. Al yelped and dropped the spear. She watched as he turned into dust. Her eyes were wide. She turned to Reyna. “Is he… is it _dead?_ Did I just kill-”

Reyna shook her head. “No. he can’t die. He’ll reform and return, just like I told you. But I’m worried about-”

“MY SON!” the roar seemed to shake the very earth. Standing twenty feet away, just where the trees gave way to the clearing they were in, was another Cyclops, at least ten feet tall.

Good ol’ Mama Cyclops had arrived.

***************************

Al froze. She just watched as the Cyclops came barreling towards them. The spear was still lying on the on the ground. Reyna tried to snap her out of it. “Al! Spear!”

Fortunately, Al seemed to realize what she was trying to say. She grabbed the spear from the ground.

_Not_ so fortunately, she didn’t really seem to have grasped the difference between a spear and a baseball bat.

_CRACK._

The spear hit the side of the Cyclops’ head, who had been expecting the spear to be thrust at her, not swung like dangerous Imperial gold projectile.

The Cyclops staggered back, and Reyna gave a final tug to the bonds, setting her hands free. Al snapped the bonds at her feet.

“Al watch out!”

Al turned round to receive round two from the Cyclops. She was thrown off her feet by the blow and crashed down near some rocks. The Cyclops decided Al was the bigger target, since Reyna was still struggling with the ropes around her knees.

Big mistake.

She was free almost as soon as the Cyclops turned. Al was crouching against the rocks, looking dazed. She probably had a concussion.

Reyna darted to the side and grabbed the spear lying to the side.

“DID YOU KILL MY BOY!”

Al decided to be difficult. “Uh, yes I did. His electronics skill was shit, and-” she was stuttering now, definitely concussed. “…getting on my nerves.”

“Do you know what it feels like to be killed by a demigod weapon, half-blood? You’re about to find out.” She raised a sword from one of the piles of scrap near her. “I have a weapon.”

Al grinned like she had been told a joke. “We have a Hulk.”

The Cyclops stopped in confusion. “What?”

She barely turned around before Reyna slammed her spear through her.

“Toodle-oo, big bones” Al gave a small wave.

Once the Cyclops had disappeared, Al turned to Reyna. “Why didn’t you do that before?”

Reyna strapped the spear to her back. “All right, I’m sorry. It’s just a knock to the head, you’ll be fine. And what the Hades was that?”

Al frowned. “What was what?”

“That Hulk thing.”

Al chuckled. “It’s from a movie. The Avengers. Loki tells Iron Man that he has an army. Tony Stark says ‘We have a Hulk’.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “You were about to be killed, and what goes through your mind is a movie dialogue.”

Al stood up. “Hey, I think I did pretty well. I’m starting to think I’m getting into the badass category now.” She picked up the sword the Cyclops had dropped. “I’m keeping this. It’s classy.”

Reyna sighed. “Let’s get out of here. I’m not waiting for any more monsters to make an appearance.”

Al grinned and made a bow. “Your wish is my command, Prae-” apparently she wasn’t quite over her concussion, because she crashed to the ground. Reyna grabbed her shoulders before she got face-planted into the dirt. “Ow.”

“What were you saying about being badass?”

Al scowled as she took her hand and sat up. “I stand by my statement.”

Reyna drew her hand back. “All right then, maybe you should-”

Al yelped and threw off her jacket. She started shaking her hands wildly. For a brief moment, Reyna wondered whether the hits to her head had done any permanent damage to her brain. Al seemed to be flailing her arms wildly, prancing on her feet and dancing around like a monkey. Finally she seemed to find something, let out a little shriek and brushed something off like it was the plague.

Al looked at her, eyes wide. “Earthworm.”

Reyna covered her mouth with her hand. There was something so ridiculous about Al’s reaction that she couldn’t help but feel the laughter build up in her stomach.

Al seemed to notice it. “Stop that. Stop that.”

Reyna shook her head. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re _laughing._ ”

“Am not!”

“You are!”

Reyna shook her head. “You faced two Cyclopes and a Hydra, and you’re afraid of _worms_?”

Al glared at her. “I’m not _afraid_ of worms. I just don’t like them; I think they’re gross and disgusting and-” she noticed Reyna’s losing battle with her laughter. “I’m _not_ afraid of stupid worms!”

Reyna clutched her side. She couldn’t stop herself. The whole thing had been so ridiculous, after the whole debacle with Gaia, running the Camp, Jason’s death, and a whole slew of other troubles topped by this new Chaos threat that suddenly this knife-wielding, movie-geek new demigod who would crush Hydras under rocks but was afraid of worms suddenly made her realize how ridiculous the whole thing was. The truth was, she was so emotionally drained that she just needed a release, and Al had provided exactly the same. Somehow Al’s desperation to dislocate an earthworm had turned into the most absurd thing in her life. Go figure.

“I’m serious!”

“HAHAHAHA!”

“It’s not funny!”

Reyna leaned against a tree, still shaking with laughter.

Al sighed. “Yeah, okay, maybe it is, just a little.”

Reyna managed to control herself. She took a deep breath and let loose one last chuckle. “All right, badass person. Let’s get you away from the worms.”

“REYNA!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo! Another chapter down. Tell me what you think, folks! The Cyclopes were a bit OOC, but I couldn't think of a way to show them right.


	12. Chapter XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... another chapter. I own nothing, except Al and Ryan's characters.

**REYNA**

Reyna was in a good mood. They had been walking westwards, just like before for two hours now. But something had changed. Today’s events seemed to have acted like an icebreaker between the two of them. She could feel herself relaxing slightly in Al’s company. They were walking in silence, but at least it wasn’t the tense I-don’t-know-you-but-I-have-to-work-with-you silence of the past few days.

She finally had some time to look at her surroundings. The old forest trees were starting to give way to open spaces, and the path they were following was more distinct, clearer, like they were approaching a small town or village.

“Where exactly do you think we are?” the question had been bugging her for a long time, and she finally thought that she could ask Al.

Al shrugged and kicked at a stray pebble. “No damn clue. Could be anywhere from Sierra Nevada to Jupiter.”

Reyna shook her head. “I’ve lived in California for years, and this definitely isn’t Sierra Nevada. I travelled from San Juan to Miami and then San Francisco, but I can't remember this place.”

Al had been obsessed with her new sword, and was presently stabbing invisible enemies in the air. “I don’t know, either. Wish my dad were here. He pretty much travelled everywhere, maybe he’d have known.”

Reyna was surprised. It was the first time Al had made any reference to her family. “So your dad is your mortal parent?”

Al shook her head. “Nah. He’s my stepdad, I guess. I mean, he showed me some photos of my mom, and it’s pretty freaky how much me and my sister look like her. I assumed he was my dad, but you crazy demigod people say one of my parents was a god, so I’m gonna go by genetics.” She turned to Reyna. “Who do you think my dad is? Any clue?”

Reyna shook her head. “You can't really be sure. You remember I told you about the Seven. One of them, Frank Zhang-”

“The archer dude. That shape-shifting thing is totally cool.”

“That’s him. We all thought that his father was Apollo, turns out it was Mars. And Frank is one of the few Romans good at archery, and the most peaceful person I know, so-”

“No way to know.”

“Yes. What about your mortal family? They might have some idea.”

Al shook her head. “Nah, it won't do any good. They’re dead, so I doubt they’ll help. The only people who’re gonna notice I’ve disappeared are the guy who owns the garage I work at, and the old lady whose house I rent a room at. But I’ve probably been fired from my job by now, so it doesn’t matter anyway, I guess.” It was obvious that more questions would not be welcome, so Reyna dropped it. But she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life it must be if the only people who knew that you were gone were your landlady and your employer.

They walked some distance in silence.

“Hey, you see that?” Al had moved ahead while she was lost in her thoughts. She was pointing down the path. “Looks like a small town.”

The jungle ended abruptly at a turn. There was a cluster of homes where the path ended a few hundred yards ahead. A tiny group of old-style homes, not quite American, not quite Roman, but there was still something odd about it, like a crazy builder had blindly decided on some building plans and just built the whole place without thought of the surroundings, one design Greek, another Roman, another old British and so on.

“Al, wait.” The sense of wrongness was eating away at her.

Al turned. “What? There’s homes there, man. I’m hungry, and I _will not_ eat another goddamned fruit if I can help it. I’ll die of all that fruit, or I’ll jump off a cliff, so-”

“For gods’ sake, Al, can you just stop for _one_ second?”

Al seemed to realize that she was serious. She walked over to her. “What’s wrong?”

“That town-”

Al’s grip on her sword tightened. “Yeah, something’s wrong.” She grinned. “What say we check it out?”

**********************

The town was even weirder from the inside. The silence seemed to eat away at the very place, making it look like one of the ghost towns you could see in movies. There wasn’t as much as a stray dog on the streets.

Al peered into an empty shop. “Guess I’m not getting my double cheeseburger with fries and coke, then.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “You’re obsessed with cheeseburgers.”

Al turned to her. “Did you say cheeseburgers?”

Reyna threw up her hands. “You’re impossible.”

“But cheeseburgers.”

“Al, if you say ‘cheeseburgers’ once more, I have a spear that I’ll introduce to your gut.”

“Cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers, cheeseburger- OW! What the hell!”

“You say cheeseburgers again, I’ll do more than just punch you.”

“Remind me again why I’m travelling with you.”

“Because you have no choice. And someone needs to deal with the worms. Without doing a tap dance.”

Al rolled her eyes. “I swear to God, Reyna, if I ever find out _one,_ just _one_ embarrassing fact about you, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

Reyna raised her eyebrow. “I thought you called me ‘Praetor’.”

Al shook her head. “That’s because I decided if I called you RARA you’d kill me.” She noticed her glare. “Right, you’d kill me. I heard Juno call you by your full name, so-” she grinned. “But are your initials seriously RARA? If you ever marked anything with your name, like a diary or something, do you write RARA? The rest of the camp is probably scared of you, but what does Hylla call you?”

“Reyna.”

“What does your dad call you?”

She gritted her teeth. From Al’s side, it was a perfectly genuine question, she didn’t know anything about San Juan yet. “He called me Reyna.”

Al seemed to notice the use the use the past tense. “Okay. I’ll drop it. Can we move ahead?”

Reyna strode forward. “We better.”

**********************

The town was made in a circular structure, with the older houses in the center, the newer buildings in the outer circle. As they made their way to the center of the town, she could see the differences in the architecture as though changing with age. She couldn’t really be sure; architecture was more of Annabeth’s interest. Frank’s if it happened to be historical; she couldn’t really forget the number of times she’d had to listen to him get excited about something or the other and talk about it for hours. Thankfully, Al seemed to be about as interested in the architecture as her.

There was an old structure at the center, which wouldn’t really have looked out of place in Greece. In fact, it reminded her of the temples at Camp Jupiter. At the same time, the place made her uneasy. Like everything else in the place, there was utter silence. She missed the chirping of the birds back in the forest. Suddenly she felt like turning round, to go anywhere but there, to give a wide berth to the temple and make their way round it. Which probably meant that the temple was the way to go.

She heard Al chuckle beside her. “The geometry of belief.”

Reyna blinked. “What?”

Al turned to her. “It’s a quote from Avengers: Age of Ult-”

Reyna shook her head. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

“You’re such a bore. I feel like Simon Lewis the first time he met the Shadowhunters.”

“Al, for gods’ sake I don’t care about Iron Man or Hulk or Batman or whatever it is you are so fond of-”

“I’m a Marvel fan. I don’t like DC, so no Batman.”

“I. Don’t. Care.”

Al gave up. “All right. So we go in there, right? Into that temple? Because my gut tells me not to, and now I want to know why.”

***********************

It took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust to the shadows. The temple’s outer hall seemed gloomy after the bright sun outside. What light there was, swept in from the side, softly modelling the intricate sculpted shape, the lions and geometrically cut stone, and of the hall’s closely spaced columns.

Reyna had been in her share of temples and churches, both at Camp Jupiter and while on the run with Hylla (mostly for sanctuary from monsters). But this was different. Unlike Western churches which, architecturally, drew you higher and higher, here they were pulled, as it were, inner and inner. Within the high stone walls of the temple complex stood a broad court, open to the sky and, within that, the roofed columned area. In further yet, they came to a great chariot, its enormous wheels, several feet in diameter, drawn by sculpted horses. The closer they approached to the central shrine itself, the darker it grew-more mysterious, more intimately progressively smaller, tighter, closer. Within the building-within-a-building structure, in a dark stone cell were two statues, of twin gods by the look of it, standing there sculpted in stone. There were dark niches devoted to secondary deities.

The only source of light came from two stone lamps burning with wicks dipped in oil, setting a light golden glow on the black stone. The stone columns were cold to touch, even in the middle of the afternoon, as though the sun had never seen the place in years. There was utter silence, no sound except that of their own breathing. The temple seemed to radiate silence by itself, as though to merely speak in its precinct would be an unforgivable crime. This was no common temple. It was a shrine for one man and his gods.

Even Al was completely silent once they stepped inside. They stopped in front of the twin statues and looked at each other. Al’s face was sombre, in a way Reyna hadn’t seen it before. Neither of them said anything, but they could sense what the other was thinking. _What do we do now?_

Reyna stepped forward. If she could identify the gods, maybe they’d have some clue as to what they were supposed to do. She studied the carved stone images. They were all of blood and gore, armies fleeing from a battlefield, among others.

_Mars. Definitely Mars. But the twin statues…_

“Huh. That makes sense.”

She almost jumped out of her skin. Al had walked so quietly behind her that she hadn’t heard her footsteps.

“What does?”

“The temple isn’t for Mars, it’s for his sons. Phobos and Deimos. Panic and terror? Or Panic and fear? I always forget what they stand for.”

“Deimos is terror. Phobos is fear. That’s where you get the word phobia. Wait. How did you know I thought-”

“Mars? It was obvious from the carvings you were looking at. It’s the most obvious conclusion. And I know Phobos and Deimos are his sons, because, well, solar system.”

“So what-”

“Oh lookie. Demigods. Finally. Do we kill them already?”

“Nah. Let’s see them cry for their mommy or daddy to help first.”

They both whirled around. Standing behind them were two people. They looked like normal humans. Heavily armed humans in armor, if humans suddenly started being ten feet tall since she was gone. But it was their eyes, their eyes that were the scariest. You just _couldn’t_ look at them. Every time she tried to look above their noses she would feel terror like she had never felt before.

One of them gave them a look. “Did you bring any offerings?”

Al shook her head.

“Well… are you fighting a war?”

Reyna shook her head. “No, Lords.” She kneeled and gestured to Al to do the same. “But we are on a quest for-”

“BOOORRING!” The taller one brought his spear down. “What do you say we have some fun, brother?”

“Why not.” The other had a wicked smile on his face.

Reyna didn’t wait. She had her spear in her hands almost instantly and swung it at the first one. The god staggered back. She pushed a stunned Al towards the exit. “Move! Now!”

Al seemed to get the cue. She recovered faster than the gods and smashed her sword against the second god’s helmet, running towards the end.

There was a roar of pain from behind them. Al ducked under the low doorway of the temple. They had just crossed the horse chariot when there was a blast knocked them to the ground. She scrambled to her feet and ran. Al wasn’t far behind.

Apparently the gods didn’t seem to be able to follow them out of the temple (another thing to add to her list of Weird-Things-That-Are-Bothering-Me) because once they had run about a few hundred meters, the gods were nowhere to be seen.

Al grabbed her hand and pulled her into a side alley. They leaned against the wall of an old Victorian-style house, trying to catch their breath.

Al put her hands on her knees and pushed her back against the golden-brown bricks. “Did you just” she panted and sat down on the ground. “Did you just hit a _god?_ And I replicated what you did? Jesus fricking Christ.”

Reyna rested her hand on her spear. “Believe me, that was _much_ better than facing whatever those two threw at us.”

Al’s eyes suddenly grew wild in alarm. She ran to the door of the house.

“Al, what on earth-”

“You did your thing, let me do mine.” Al removed a hairpin from her pocket. Reyna stared. Al’s hair was _way_ too short to ever need a hairpin, even if it was pretty curly. Why would she-

Oh. There was a lock on the door, not precisely a lock, but you would definitely need a latchkey to open the door. Al fumbled with the lock, and the door gave way with a soft click. She turned round. “Get in. Now. Questions later.”

Reyna stepped through the door and allowed it to shut behind her. It was a bit creepy how in-character the place was. It was as if a London home from Victoria’s time had been picked up and placed there. What was even creepier was the fact that it didn’t seem abandoned at all. The place was still silent, but it was as if the residents had simply gone out for a walk. There was an umbrella in a stand, a hat and coat hung up on a hook, shoes in the dresser, and the place was clean. It was as though the house had been emptied of humans and time frozen in the place.

Suddenly a rush of fear went through her. She wanted to run, to curl up into a ball, to do anything but think. Al seemed to notice. “You felt that too, huh? I felt it outside. That’s the game, I think. They’ll scare the shit out of us while they walk around, having fun at our expense. Must be that blast we felt. I figured we’d be safer here.”

Reyna didn’t reply. She could feel the chill going up her spine. The fear was crippling; it paralyzed her, made it impossible to think, to breathe. Suddenly the world dissolved into darkness.

*************************

She was standing in her favorite spot in Camp Jupiter, in the Garden of Bacchus. The surroundings were as familiar to her as the back of her hand. Whenever she’d feel stressed (which was a lot) she’d make her way here. She had come to love the garden, with its fountains and flowers, a constant in her life which seemed to keep changing like a roller coaster while still seeming monotonous. She loved the place because of its vibrant presence and its familiarity; people changed, times changed, but this place was always there.

Suddenly she heard the sound of a horn being blown. The war horn, an emergency signal for an unexpected attack. She ran down to the grounds as soon as she could, thankful that her weapons were still with her.

Too late. She was too late.

The battlefield was strewn with bodies of dead demigods, some familiar, some of them her friends, some whom she had never even seen. A laugh resonated around her, deep and powerful.

“Little Praetor. What can you do? One mere demigod among others.” There was something in the voice, strangeness of accent, both unknown and familiar at the same time.

“Look where your path leads. The legacy of Rome will be gone soon. Bellona’s blessing means nothing.” It took her a moment to realize that she had heard the same accent from the man in the dark hall. It was not a country, it was _time, time_ that was different, an age in the timbre that stretched back to the beginning of the world.

“You train, you fight, you die, all for what? In the end you will always fail.”

The world dissolved again.

*********************

This time she knew she was in trouble as soon as she woke up. She knew _exactly_ where she was, and after last year’s experience, any time was too soon to be here again.

The worst part was that the place looked exactly as it had nearly seven years ago when she had run away from there.

A little _too_ similar.

A crumpled form of a sixteen year old girl lay in the corner, next to a chair, blood trickling from her forehead. An imperial gold saber was in her hands. _How the hell did that get there?_

Even as she stood there, she could hear the whispers in the back of her head.

_Murderer. Traitor. You can never flee your crime._

Her hands started shaking. It was stupid, and she knew it. These ghosts had no power over her. Then why did she still feel scared of them? Fear was irrational, but not this. Anything but this.

“Padre, no lo dije en serio. Se suponía que esto nunca iba a pasar. ¡Por favor! ¡Déjame solo!”

/*Father, I didn't mean it! this was never supposed to happen. Please! Leave me alone!*/

_We will never leave you. You shall never-_

“WAKE UP!”

The strange voice completely out of tandem with her thoughts jerked her out of her thoughts. She felt a hand shaking her shoulder.

Her reflexes kicked in instantly, reacting to the presence of another person. By the time her vision cleared, she had the intruder by the throat against the carpeted floor.

But her home didn’t have a carpeted floor. She blinked, trying to get her bearings when a hoarse voice came from the floor.

“I got the message, you know. I won't wake you up, like ever again.”

She took her hand away and Al rolled free, hand on her throat. “You know, I really think you’re an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D agent. Or a Shadowhunter. Or-”

“What in Hades just happened here?”

Al leaned against a wall. “Phobos, Deimos, freaking out, me getting it easy because I’ve never led a crazy life like you, trying to wake you up, and you-” she waved her hand in her general direction “-just tried to kill me.”

She felt herself calming down from whatever it was that those damn gods had done to her. A sudden thought crossed her head.

“Wait, if you woke up before me, did you hear what I was-”

Al gave an involuntary shudder. “That was horrible. You won't believe the limits of one’s imagination. It was kinda like being given the Dauntless serum. You think Veronica Roth ever met these two blokes? Because if she hasn’t then she got their effects bang-on.”

Reyna felt blindsided as usual. It was something that had almost become normal while talking to Al. “What? Is that another movie?”

Al shook her head. “No, it’s a book series. Actually, there is a movie, but I like the books better.”

Reyna frowned when she stopped so quickly. Al generally talked about books and movies for hours on end, something that had frequently made her wonder whether Juno would be pissed if she (accidentally) managed to knock Al out. She looked at Al. Her expression was neutral, but she looked as rattled as she herself felt. There was something lying next to her, which she saw as Al picked it up. It was a violin, and old one, probably from this house, dark brown in color. Al was holding it in her lap, running her palm across the surface, skimming her fingers across the strings. She had seen people do that before, holding some familiar object and tracing its shape to calm themselves down. It made her wonder what exactly it was that Al saw. Something told her it wasn’t worms.

“You play the violin?”

Al grinned. “I also learnt the drums on a whim. It’s a weird combination, but then I’m a creature of moods.” She put the violin back into the case. “it’s afternoon now, do you want to start moving or wait here and move ahead tomorrow?”

Reyna leapt to her feet. “We move. Now. I’m not staying in this place a minute more than I have to.”

Al looked up at her, her intense gaze fixed on her, like she was a complex code she was trying to understand. Finally she got up and dusted her jeans. “As you wish, Praetor.” She picked up the violin case. “I’m taking this along.” She noticed Reyna’s expression. “It’s not like the owner’s gonna come back soon.”

**********************

They spent the rest of the day walking in silence, neither of them ready for the other’s questions. Sadly, that gave her a lot of time to think about today’s events. Something about Al kept bothering her, some inconsistency, something wrong…

It took her a few minutes to realize what it was. It was _change,_ the fact that everything she knew about Al in the beginning was no longer the same.

Al had no formal training in fights. Yet she had managed to hold her own against all the monsters they had faced. She claimed to have lived in a city all her life, but she did just as well in the forest and hill region they were walking through. Reyna had found her old English slightly ridiculous, like she had learnt it two hundred years ago. Now whatever she said would have been indistinguishable from any other New Yorker. She said that she was a tech enthusiast, but she had a hairpin with which she picked locks. She knew next to nothing about Al except what she had been told.

For the first time, Reyna wondered whether anything she knew about Al was real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh. That ended up a little dark, and I started it of so light. BTW I'll put up another two or three chapters, then I will be on a two week long hiatus (because damn you, midterms). Don't worry, I'll complete it as soon as that is over. I ain't gonna abandon this.  
> Next Chapter: Camp Jupiter, people!


	13. Chapter XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry for the slow updates, but like I said, I'm facing my term exams. I'm literally uploading this because by Math teacher just lost her net connection to the online class. I know, I know, I shouldn't, but whatever.

**HAZEL**

Being a Centurion certainly had its perks, but sometimes Hazel wondered whether it was really worth all the trouble.

It wasn’t even noon, and she’d broken up three fights between the legionnaires, managed to convince a bunch of nine-year olds that setting fire to various things just to see them burn was not a good idea, and rescued a new demigod from monsters near the Caldecott tunnel. Again.

There had been less monsters this time, so the border guard had managed to deal with them with a little assistance from her. But it was still a lot to do before noon. She could almost understand why Dakota kept on drinking all that Kool-Aid.

The number of monster attacks on the incoming demigods lately had been worrying. Then again, an entire camp had disappeared. Worrying was redundant.

She entered the little shop selling hot chocolate. San Francisco wasn’t really that cold in November, but the temperature was still a bit low.

Plus, hot chocolate was universal.

Leo and Percy were already there, sitting at a small table. They waved her over.

She raised an eyebrow. “What kind of person drinks coke on a cold day?”

Percy leant back in his chair and grinned. “The one and only Percy Jackson, Centurion Levesque. Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since yesterday.”

Hazel slipped into another chair. “Don’t ask. It’s been a long day. And the Fifth just got another legionnaire. Unclaimed, twelve years old. Her name’s Daisy. I’m actually worried about the monsters in Caldecott Tunnel now. They keep on attacking every demigod who tries to get to camp. We don’t even know how many of them didn’t make it.”

Leo held up a doughnut. “Why _would_ you think of something like that? Can we not live in peaceful ignorance? Why must you torment our conscience with such information?”

The door flew open, and Piper walked in. Leo waved to her. “Beauty Queen, do you want the death of innocent demigods on your conscience?”

Piper looked nonplussed. “What, now?”

Percy shook his head. “Ignore him, he’s just trying to prove he’s funnier than me. For the record, he’s not.”

Piper groaned and took the seat next to Hazel. “Too early for that, Leo.”

“It’s like, eleven, McLean.”

Piper put her head on the table. “Without coffee it is.”

Hazel smiled. She knew that some part of Piper still blamed herself for Jason’s death, and was happy to see her friend start going back to normal. For a while, her smiles had been laced with pain, and her humor had started to have a dark edge to it. Leo had stuck to her like glue, and often reminded Hazel of an overenthusiastic younger brother trying to make his big sister smile. Almost the way Sammy must have been to his siblings.

Leo grinned. “Come on, Beauty Queen. Let’s go prank the Romans. Their reaction is much, much better than the Greeks’. They get so offended it’s hilarious.”

“Coffee, Leo.”

Just then the door flew open and Annabeth flew in, looking like she had been running. The owner scowled at her; she _did not_ appreciate people banging the doors of her precious café.

“We just had a warning from border patrol.” She paused to take a breath. “There’s a large horde of monsters getting closer to the camp.”

Hazel frowned. “But they can't enter the camp, can they? I mean with all-”

There was a loud blare of a horn from the outside. They rushed out of the little café. The horn was the emergency signal for an attack on the Camp. More people were spilling out on the streets, running towards the armouries, to barracks, to their homes.

The last time the horn had sounded, was when Polybotes had launched the attack on the Camp. They ran to the entrance, hoping it wasn’t something major, because they were _so_ not prepared for an attack like that. The legionnaires were stumbling into formation, weapons at the ready. Frank (as a dragon) flew over their heads and landed in front of them. “Legion, _cuneum formate!_ Advance!”

The entrance to the camp was being overrun by a wave of monsters. The shock on the legion’s face was pretty much exactly what Hazel was feeling. Even Polybotes had a hard time breaking through the protective shields around the Camp. These monsters didn’t seem to feel the shield at all.

The demigods charged, spears at the ready. The two armies met at the Little Tiber, all hell breaking loose, the next hour a whirl of activity.

They were everywhere, the monsters, beasts of various kinds, in Frank’s words, strange and familiar at the same time. She and Piper were trying to drive back one section from the river. The Little Tiber at least provided some protection from them. If the monsters got beyond it, New Rome was toast.

All around them, demigods were clashing with the monsters, trying to drive them out of the camp. Somehow the news of Camp Half-Blood’s disappearance had leaked to the Legion, and no one wanted to end up like the Greeks.

Percy stood at the centre of all the chaos, hands spread apart, a hurricane forming at his feet. Two giant fists of water rose from the river, ploughing through the monsters, destroying them and scattering their ranks in panic. Leo and Nico were standing on either side of him, Leo blowtorching the monsters trying to escape, and Nico making the ground open up to swallow up the rest.

Frank was flying above as a dragon, Annabeth standing below him with the Legion’s eagle in her hand, turning the worst line of monsters to deep fried monster dust. Piper kept on charmspeaking the monsters. “Kill the one next to you! Good, now stab yourself in the heart. Keep going!”

The legionnaires were holding their own. Swords clashed fangs and claws, slicing the monsters to dust. _They could do this._

The monsters were almost gone. A cheer went from the left as the monster retreated into the tunnel. Things were going well. Until a few demigods from the Fifth sheathed their swords.

It was a group of new demigods, the ones who had joined after the war with Gaia. They had followed the monsters some distance into the tunnel, driving them out. They had assumed that the fight was over, when a large horde of monsters flew from the shadows and swept over them. Hazel cursed as she ran over to them. The newest demigod was the one she had just found that morning. They took out their weapons, but the monsters had swooped down, flying at the level of their heads, pecking at their faces. As she ran closer, Hazel could make out the monsters better. They were shriveled old hags with wings, like harpies, but they had viciously sharp beaks and long, curved talons, which they were using to slash at the demigods. Most of them were batting the monsters around, trying to get them away from their heads. Others had also noticed and were trying to make their way to them, while some were mopping up the remaining monsters near the Tiber.

Hazel was halfway when one of the monsters made a swipe at the newest demigod, slamming her onto the rocky wall of the tunnel. Another, sensing an easy prey, followed its fellow to fly next to her.

_Oh my gods no, please, no, she’d just a kid…_

The girl seemed to notice what was happening. She got to her feet and raised her sword. One monster dived at her, and she swiped at it with her sword. Another dived at her, followed by a third. She saw herself being surrounded and yelled in rage and desperation and slammed a monster into the wall.

A shock wave seemed to go through the monsters. For a moment, everyone stood still. They started running around, banging their own heads, tearing each other’s feathers out, trying to smash rocks, killing each other in gruesome fights. Even the demigods stumbled around, clutching their heads, tripping over their feet, generally acting like they had completely lost it. The demigods running to their aid stopped and backed up, watching in horror. The girl was clutching her sword, staring shell-shocked at the scene in front of her.

A symbol burned above her head, a long thin staff with a pinecone on top, a grapevine curled around it, glowing with a deep purple light. A Thyrsus.

Dakota stepped forward from the nearby watchers. His face was pale, making the red Kool-Aid ring around his face even more prominent. “All hail… whatever your name is, daughter of Bacchus, God of wine, fruitfulness… and madness.”

The girl looked stunned. Then she did the natural thing, she ran at top speed into the city, as far from the legion as she could.

*******************

Hazel found her leaning against a wall in one of the narrow side alleys of New Rome, legs tucked under her, hands crossed, shivering. Her choppy black hair which came up to her neck was disheveled, and her hands were coated with dust. As soon as she saw Hazel, she shot to her feet and held her sword out.

“Leave me alone.” Her voice was shaking. “I don’t want to fight you. I just… I just need to get away from here. I want to go back to New York. I _need_ to get back to New York.”

Hazel raised her hands. “I’m not going to fight you.” She tried to use the same soothing tone that she used with Arion whenever he got skittish. “I just came to check how you’re feeling.”

“I don’t see how that is your problem in any damn way.” Her voice was angrier now. “All I need to do is get away from here.”

Hazel felt desperate. The kid was far too angry for her age. And if her anger got out of control again… it wouldn’t be pretty.

A gold bar popped to the surface near the girl. She stared and then reached out for it. 

“Don’t touch it!” Hazel felt the panic rushing through her. She assumed that Frank had washed away her curse, but she didn’t want to test the theory out on a twelve-year old.

She narrowed her eyes. “Why not? Is it cursed or something?”

Hazel sighed. “It kind of is. I mean I’m not really sure. It’s complicated.”

“Tell me about it.”

******************

They were both sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall. Hazel had finished telling her about the curse. They had been talking for some time. Apparently she was a homeless kid who’s been living in New York until one day the wolves had come and found her, after which she’d gone to the Wolf House and later hitchhiked to Camp Jupiter. She had lived with mortals all her life and had no idea about any of the mythological base of their lives. She’d sometimes lived with a friend of hers in Manhattan. By demigod standards, it was an average life. Not good, just average. Hazel found that she liked the kid. She really hoped that the kid wouldn’t run away. She wasn’t that bad, just terrified of what she could do. It was like looking at herself in her first life, frustrated, scared, always a little afraid to let emotions show.

“What’s your name?” Hazel asked turning towards her.

She was examining her nails, dark eyes distant. She reminded Hazel of a younger and scrawnier version of Thalia Grace, but with black eyes and without her freckles.

“Daisy.”

“I know it’s Daisy. What’s your full name?”

She scowled. “I don’t use my surname.”

Hazel studied her expression. “Family trouble?”

She laughed bitterly. “Oh, you bet.”

“So if you ever had to go somewhere, or you know, if someone asked questions…”

For the first time, a smile twitched on her lips like it was a private joke. “I’d call myself Daisy Johnson.”

Hazel frowned. Was that supposed to mean something to her?

Daisy looked at her, waiting for her to get the joke. She sighed. “Never mind.”

Hazel leaned against the wall. “How long were you on the streets before the wolves found you?”

Daisy rubbed her knees. “Four years.”

Hazel shot up. “You survived on your own for _four years_? Most demigods don’t make it four weeks. You must have been like eight when you ran away.”

She placed her elbows on her knees. “I wasn’t _alone_ exactly. I made a few friends. They were mortal, but still… you know? It helped. And I get that you’re trying to make me feel better, but you’re one of the Seven. I’m just the crazy kid who drove the people around me to madness.”

Hazel shook her head. “No, you didn’t. Whatever effect you unleashed was temporary. Everyone is back to normal. You didn’t hurt anyone.”

She drew her legs, hugging them to her chest. “I can’t go back there. I’ll be skewered. I can’t go back to the Fifth Cohort. I don’t want to be looked at like I’m some kind of… some kind of a freak.”

Hazel wished she could say something different. But she remembered all too well the kids at St. Agnes, who’d called her mom a witch, and called her damned. The truth was that times changed, but human nature didn’t. The legion members of the Fifth Cohort were slightly better than the others, but that didn’t mean they would treat her well.

“I lived by myself for years, and suddenly I’m not capable of it? That’s ridiculous.” She turned to Hazel. “I know someone in New York. She wouldn’t mind having me over. I’ve been to her place for years, it’s safe.”

Hazel bit her lip. “Your friend is still mortal, Daisy. I don’t know how you went through your whole life without attracting a monster, but if you go, your friend will be in danger too.”

Daisy snorted. “You haven’t met her. She’s the kind of person who could get tossed into hell and walk out of it with the Devil himself owing her a favor. She lives in Hell’s Kitchen. I think some part of her is still hoping to run into Daredevil one day.”

Hazel blinked. “Run into who, now?”

Daisy’s lips twitched upward into a smile. “He’s kind of like this blind lawyer who’s secretly a superhero, and…” she noticed Hazel’s blank look. “He’s a comic book character, who’s called the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Doesn’t _anyone_ here read comics? Or watch TV? Is that why y’all are so grumpy?”

Hazel rose to her feet. “I can’t answer that, but I can give you something. I am a Centurion of the Fifth Cohort. I can try to make it easier for you here. Trust me, in a few months it will be all over. I can’t promise it will be easy, but I can promise to do my best.” She could see the hesitation on her face. “Look, give it a try, all right? Give it six months. If it doesn’t work…” she shrugged. “I think in this empty world there’s room for you and a mountain lion.”

Daisy looked up at her. “That’s DH Lawrence’s Mountain Lion. I never really understood that poem.”

Hazel smiled. “It’s been ages since I met someone who reads poetry.”

Daisy laughed. “I don’t read poetry. I just happened to come across that phrase in another book, where _another_ person quotes it so I looked it up. Didn’t get it. _At all._ ”

Hazel extended her hand. “Well, then, maybe I could explain to you what it means.”

Daisy chuckled. “No, thanks but no thanks, Centurion, I haven’t achieved that level of madness yet.” She took her hand. “All right. I’ll give it a try.”

Hazel breathed a sigh of relief. At least the kid wouldn’t be slaughtered out in the real world by a monster for six months. “That’s all I ask.”

Just then Tyson came barreling around the corner, and stopped on seeing Hazel. “Where is Percy?”

“I don’t know, Tyson.” Hazel dusted her hands off. “What’s the matter?”

“Ella just found a prophecy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, what do you think of this one? I promise I have a reason for all these OCs. BTW if you are sick of them, this is the last OC. And yes, I finally found a verse that will serve vey well as a prophecy for my story. I think Tyson is being slightly OOC here, but I'm trying my best. I'll attempting to update as soon as possible, but exams. Bye, everyone. I have to go and prove that the locus of point of intersection of perpendicular tangents to a hyperbola is the director circle. : (


	14. Chapter XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hey, this update came in a bit late. Truth is, I had this one typed up days ago but I'm still having difficulties in the next chapter, since the character keep acting OOC no matter how hard I try, so I withheld this one to get myself some time. Next chapter will probably be up in four to five days.

**ANNABETH**

The others were already there by the time she reached the library.

They were standing in a rough semicircle, with a book lying in front of them. Ella was standing in a corner, occasionally bringing up a claw to scratch her feathers. Leo looked like he had just come from the forge, his trousers still smoking from the heat. Or maybe he was excited and was going to combust, which would be bad for Frank standing next to him. Hazel looked like she had been sitting on the ground for a long time, with the dusty stains on her knees and hands. Percy saw her and pulled her into the group.

“Hey, Wise Girl.” He gave her a quick kiss. “Look what new torture verse, sorry _prophecy_ we have found.”

It was scrawled in Latin on the paper, but Frank (gods bless him) had written it down in Ancient Greek for the rest of them.

_Five shall pass away_

_Four shall wear the crown_

_Three shall fall_

_Two shall rise together_

_And one shall rise from the ashes and never see the end of days._

“Where did Ella get this?” Annabeth looked over the lines again. They were different from a normal prophecy, not in the form of rhyming couplets or the normal abab/ aabb pattern of most prophecies. It was in free verse, but that didn’t really help.

Frank sighed. “We don’t know. She isn’t really being helpful now. Keeps on quoting Dickens.”

Annabeth studied the lines. _Five shall pass away._ Five what? Five people? Five hours? Five years?

The next line wasn’t any better. _Four shall wear the crown._ Did it mean crown as in the crown of the universe, which Zeus was wearing right now? Maybe it would mean… but the next line. _Three shall fall._ After all that had gone down, they couldn’t afford to lose another person. Or did it mean three as in enemies like Kronos and Gaia and this new threat? This prophecy was driving her insane. _Three shall fall._ That _had_ to be the way it always went down, wasn’t it?

“You know, by all standards of prophecy, this is a pretty good one.” Leo waved his hands about. “I mean, _one shall rise from the ashes and never see the end of days._ Not seeing the end of days is good for us, right? I mean, we’ve basically got victory nicely tied up in front of us. Not that we didn’t have it tied up before,” he winked. “But duct tape and Frank’s socks don’t count as good restraints, I’m afraid.”

Frank rolled his eyes. Piper tapped the paper it was written on. “We get that, Leo. It’s just that _rise from the ashes?_ Why is the world rising from the ashes? We don’t even know what is rising from the ashes. And I don’t like the line about three shall fall.”

Percy leaned against one of the bookshelves. “I think we’re worrying too much about the prophecy. We don’t even know when it begins. Maybe it’s a hundred years later and whatever is happening right now is something else altogether.” He sounded so hopeful, no one seemed to have the heart to disagree with him. Not that anyone wanted to.

“So what exactly is it that we’re supposed to do?” Hazel ran a hand through her hair. “I mean, every prophecy we have got, we’ve always had an idea what exactly it is that we have to do. I mean, at least we knew the first step, like, for example, we have to go to Rome, or something like that. Here we don’t even know how to begin.”

“What if we began with searching for Camp Half-Blood?” Nico spoke up from the corner. “Leo, is there anything you can figure out about it?”

“Death Boy, your belief in my abilities is flattering, but sadly, I don’t know all that goes on in the world. I need to have something to track. I do have an idea, though.” He tapped the table. “The hunters of Artemis. Those gals go everywhere. If we drop them a message, maybe they’ll have seen something, and _maybe_ they’ll help us.”

Annabeth felt a flicker of hope. Leo was right. If they could somehow get into contact with the Hunters, they could help with their dilemma here. Plus, Artemis was one of the most helpful goddesses, right after Hestia. Thalia would be here in a heartbeat if she knew something had happened to Camp Half-Blood. “How do we get into contact with them? I thought Iris Messages had stopped working completely now.” She would know, she had wasted enough drachmas trying to get into contact with Chiron.

Hazel frowned. “I heard Reyna mention it once. The Hunters still get letters. They have a post box, in… Wyoming, I think?” she didn’t seem sure. “We could try and post a letter. If the Hunters are near, they’ll respond.”

Percy put his hands in his pockets. “A letter.” He repeated. “Like that thing hundreds of years ago, where you wrote something on a piece of paper, and then you put it in a box, and then someone puts in another box, and etcetera etcetera etcetera, and the other guy gets the letter a million years after, that one?”

Hazel’s lips twitched into a smile. “It’s not that inefficient, Percy. Just slow. And it’s not like we have a lot to do anyway. We write the letter and let it go. Unless someone has a better idea.”

“All right.” Frank got up from the chair he’d taken. “Annabeth, I think you should write the letter. Thalia will respond most quickly to you.”

“I’ll come along, too.” Percy stopped leaning against the bookshelves. “It’s been a long time since I got a word to good ol’ Pinecone Face.”

Leo grinned. “You call the Lieutenant of Artemis ‘Pinecone Face’?”

Percy spread his arms like a showman. “There is no end to the wonders of the world.”

Annabeth felt herself laugh despite her worry. “Come on, Seaweed Brain. You and Leo can trade nicknames later.”

*****************

They stood in the Praetors’ office, looking out through the window. The view from the Praetors’ office of New Rome was beautiful. They’d (finally) managed to write a letter with Frank’s help, since they were both dyslexic and could have stood there all day while they tried to write it. Frank put the letter in an envelope from his desk and sealed it. “What was the post box number?”

“No clue.” Percy shrugged. “Hazel said Reyna knew.”

Frank walked over to Reyna’s desk. “Then maybe the address is here somewhere.”

He stopped mid-step with one foot in the air. A deep growling could be heard from under the desk. Aurum and Argentum stepped out and glared menacingly at him with their ruby eyes.

“Shit.” Frank took a couple of steps back. “I’d forgotten about you two.”

The dogs bared their teeth. Annabeth didn’t need to be able to turn into a dog to know what they were saying. _No one goes near mom’s desk, unless you want to be food._

“By Mars.” Frank rubbed his face. “Why can't Reyna have nicer pets, like guinea pigs or bunnies or kittens or something?”

Percy shuddered. “Please, no guinea pigs.”

Annabeth stepped forward, and the dogs started growling again. She tried to put all the force in her voice as she tried to pull off the same trick she had tried with Cerberus. She picked up a circular Gems ball on Frank’s desk and tossed it to the dogs. “Sit.”

The dogs gave her such an unimpressed look that made her wonder what would happen if they were left in a room with Mr. D.

Frank raised his hands. “Look, I just need an address. Not gonna steal anything.”

The dogs looked at each other, like they were having a silent argument.

“I’ll even give you jellybeans.” Frank tried hopefully.

The dogs gave him a bored stare.

“Or not.” He squeaked. “I’ll just take what I need and go.”

Percy came behind her and took her hand. “Come with me.” He whispered. He led them to the door. “All right, Frank.” He called. “I think you have this well in hand, so Annabeth and I are going to get hot chocolate. Would you like anything from there?”

Frank turned. “Wait what-”

Percy slammed the door and they ran down the steps. “Race you there, Wise Girl?”

Annabeth laughed. “You’re on, Seaweed Brain!”

They ran over to the little café which had become everyone’s meeting place for some time now. At the last minute, Percy grabbed her, swinging her around to plant a kiss on her lips, and then ran. It took her a couple of seconds to realize what had just happened. “Not fair!” she protested as he laughed and ran into the café.

*******************

They ran into Piper as they came out, laughing at one of Percy’s jokes. “Hey, McLean.” Percy grinned. “Did you see Frank sometime around now? I wanted to know in what condition he is.”

Piper looked confused. “Why would Frank-”

Annabeth cut in. “Because Percy threw him to the dogs. Literally. Menacing metallic greyhounds with extremely sharp teeth.”

Piper facepalmed. “Oh my gods, Percy, I just came here after stopping Leo from running around the main square while on fire yelling “Flame on!”

Percy laughed. “I would have paid to see that.”

Annabeth smiled. “Why the foul mood, Piper?”

Piper shrugged. “Just the prophecy, I guess. I’m sick of continuously being screwed over by the gods.”

Percy snorted. “Welcome to the club. We have shirts and tissues.”

Annabeth shook her head. “This is bigger than the gods, Piper. I don’t think they have any more control over it than we do. They are running as blind as us, you know what Hades told Nico.”

Piper’s laugh was bitter. “Right. Maybe they’ll finally know what it’s like to be us. Call me insane, but I think they deserve it, to run around just as clueless as us for a while.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “Like they are going to care. Zeus will just bury his head in the sand again, leave us to deal with the whole thing, come in at the end, and pretend that he’s doing us a huge favor by just existing.”

Piper’s hands were curled into fists. “Sometimes I wonder what good they are. The Olympians, I mean. Some of them are all right, but sometimes I wonder whether it wouldn’t be better if someone did away with them altogether.”

Just then Leo ran up to them. “Hey, Water Boy.” He grinned. “Let’s go, shall we? Time for my favorite activity at Camp Jupiter. Dinner!”

Even as they walked over to have dinner, Annabeth couldn’t help but wonder exactly how bitter Piper’s thoughts regarding the Olympians were.

*********************

Ever since the war with Gaia, her nightmares had increased. Tonight was no different.

She was sitting in a dimly lit room. The whole place was made of black basalt, illuminated by oil lamps casting a deep golden glow on the surrounding walls. Somehow, she knew that she was underground, far, far below the surface, where light could never penetrate.

She looked at her hands. They looked nothing like her own. Her fingers had suddenly become thick and calloused. She was sitting at a stone table, writing on a parchment like paper. She was wearing a black cloak, the hood of which was removed from her head. Her skin was paler than she was used to seeing, and her knuckles were more prominent, a man’s hands.

Her throat felt swollen and dry, like she was being slowly dehydrated. She couldn’t have spoken if she wanted to. Her eyes were drooping, and she felt like she was going to fall asleep any moment.

She was writing with an old-style quill or stylus, the ink flowing out to form words in Ancient Greek, even though she wasn’t thinking of anything. This must be someone else’s perspective, a vision, perhaps, or a memory. She tried to read the words on the paper.

_It has been a long time since I put my pen to paper, and now that I do, I find it exceedingly difficult to make my words seem sense. There was a time when the words flowed from me as the water flows from the rivers, but now that time is long since past, along with all that was dear to me. I will not cry over, nor mourn this untimely decay, because it is the order of the universe, that tribe follow tribe, nation follow nation, like the waves of the sea. To mourn it is redundant and useless._

_Today is the last day of my life. Tomorrow, I make my last stand against my own blood; yet he were not to blame, for he is a reflection of mine own self, the other side of the coin, the second wheel of the chariot. He is in every way myself, for there is never a time when I look into his eyes and see what could have been myself, had I been differently born, perhaps to a kinder fate._

_It has been many a day since I saw the sun and the stars. I find that, after all that has gone down, it is these that I long for the most, to feel the sunlight on my skin, to see the stars stretch to infinity in the boundless sky. I long for human company, the same that I shunned not so many years ago; to hear the laughter and tears of my loved ones, to exchange greetings with perfect strangers, to occasionally see something that might bring a smile to my lips._

_And yet they are all gone, while I sit here, alone in this place, a lone memory of a people once stronger and hopeful than dreams could ever be. I am all that remains of a civilization more beautiful and wonderful than any wish could conjure. Perhaps that is the reason I put my pen to paper, to retain my memory, for is that not all that I have left? After all, love is a spirit of war. To face a war, one must first love, no matter how futile, for no one can face war without loving something: family, friends, home, or even your own self. I have nothing to love but a memory._

_Tomorrow shall probably be the final day of my life. Either way, I am reassured that I will end up at the foot of my father’s throne. If things go the way I desperately wish for them to go, perhaps many years later someone in my footsteps shall read these words and find some comfort, to know that they are not alone, that someone once stood in this very dilemma, and perhaps it will give them the hope I could never find for myself._

_But this is a story that demands to be told, a saga that goes on for millennia, has gone on for millennia even before my birth. It is the story of the world, it is the reason the universe moves, it is the reason of what makes the world go round. An epic that insists to be acknowledged, which I now put down here, because it deserves to be remembered. I only hope that I have enough strength to continue this work in hand, for I believe that every person, whose name is now lost in the sands of time, deserves to have their story remembered, even if on a tattered parchment in written in the darkness of a lost cavern._

_My throat is dry. I have not seen water in ages, let alone felt it on my lips, and yet I cannot die without completing my task. Sometimes I believe that fate is crueler than any other thing, even death. I hope I can finish. I hope my willpower does not give way, that I do not succumb to the sweet enchantment that is sleep, no matter how much it might be wrought with nightmares, for nothing can be worse than the nightmare that I see. I hope I can do this._

_Because tomorrow, it will be too late. Because tomorrow, time runs out._

Suddenly the whole place started to shake. Annabeth flailed her hands, trying to find whatever was trying to stop her from writing. It took her a few moments to realize that someone was shaking her awake. She opened her eyes to see Percy leaning over her. “Wake up, Wise Girl. Breakfast is in ten minutes, and the Romans don’t have room service.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. yes. I'm a horrible person, I took the prophecy from the last book in the Secrets of Droon series. Full credit to Tony Abbott. It's been years since I read a Secrets of Droon book, so it took me a long time before I thought: "Wait... that kids' book about the dragon and the bull emperor.... didn't it have a prophecy like the one I need?" and hey, presto, I got the verse I needed. Sorry about that guys, but I'm terrible at poetry (my personal attempts at a prophecy verse were (cringes)) and I couldn't rhyme to save my life.  
> Tell me what you think, guys! Criticism is welcome, as long as it is constructive.


	15. Chapter XV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, hope this makes up for it!  
> BTW: This fic has been edited on 29/10/2020. Nothing major, I just deleted a small part at the end of this chapter, the one of the scene in People's Park and a bit of conversation (for those who read it earlier and are now wondering) which felt rather unnecessary and also a little flat. The rest is the same.

**REYNA**

They were finally there.

So many days of walking, and they had finally made their way to the destination. For lack of a better name, they had agreed to call the place ‘Juno’s cave’. It stood directly above them, a climb at an incline of about sixty degrees which they would climb first thing tomorrow morning.

She compared the landscape of the previous few days with the one in front of them. They had been constantly walking through a hilly territory, but the slopes had always been gentle, almost unnoticeable, marked only because of the curving paths. Now it was as if some crazy god had decided that the mountains ended here, and cut up the mountainside to give a sheer drop. The green forests had swallowed them up as soon as they left the town.

The place they were standing was relatively clear, tufts of wild grass reaching up to their knees, a couple of at the edge of the tiny clearing. A small cluster of boulders stood at the very edge of the cliff with a gap between them, barely enough for one person to sit with their legs outstretched. Al immediately made her way there, dropping the violin case and her jacket onto the grass before lying down on the jacket. She had barely said a word since they had left the town behind.

Reyna continued walking “I’ll scout around for monsters. Try and see if you can spot any. Raise an alarm.”

She came back to find Al sitting leaning against the rocks at the edge of the cliff, barely a meter between her and the drop. She had the violin placed across her lap, with the bow on top of it. Her head was resting on her palms against the rock and her eyes were closed.

Reyna lowered herself to sit on the ground in front of the opposite boulder. “All clear.”

Al opened her eyes. “You killed your father.”

The suddenness of it took her by surprise. A chill went up her spine. _How did she know?_

Reyna tried to keep her expression neutral. She had nothing to prove to Al.

Al’s expression was difficult to decipher. There was no judgement in it, more like… curiosity. Al was curious. Her voice was soft. “It was an accident, wasn’t it? Why?”

She finally got her voice back. “That’s none of your business.”

Al picked up the bow of the violin. “I know that. But I’d be happier to follow you if I were sure that I won't end up with a sword in me.”

Reyna snapped. This was precisely why she never wanted to share this with others. They always assumed the worst. Granted, Al figured it out on her own, but that didn’t change anything. “ _You_ talk to me about hiding things? _You_ talk to me about being a traitor? Who the _hell_ are you totalk to me about trust?”

Al tilted her head to the side slightly. “That annoys you, doesn’t it? But I’m not the one who killed her father.”

“I have nothing to prove to you.” Reyna stood her ground. Or sat. she wasn’t going to run away just because Al guessed something she shouldn’t have.

Al was silent. Wind blew through the gap in the rocks, making a slight whistling noise. The evening was rapidly darkening, shadows lengthening from the trees.

“My father was a con artist.”

Reyna blinked. “What?”

Al’s eyes had closed again, one hand resting on her knee. “You asked me who the hell I am.”

Al grinned, but it wasn’t like her previous smiles. There was something almost bitter in it. “Dear ol’ dad simply couldn’t have a normal job. He was a con artist, a cat burglar, a fake psychic, a confidence trickster and a hypnosis master, among a thousand other things.” Her jaw clenched. “He was always what the person in front of him wanted him to be, because people get fooled easier, sorry _deal better_ that way. After he died, I tried my best not to turn out like him, but” She laughed bitterly. “Guess I’m more like him than I thought.”

She looked up at Reyna. Her brown eyes glinted with dark humor. “Believe it or not, my little sister never even got named properly. Dad changed his name and ours as fast as his clothes. He was Joseph Jones, Aaron Kane, James Shaw, Arnold James all in one year. The longest time, two years, for which he had one name was when I was six. He called himself Ronald Alexander Haden, and he was a fake psychic. He would always be there for the next heist, the next big con, and after that we’d be out of the state or the country depending upon how many people he had pissed off. I spent most of my life in travelling carnivals and circuses. His real name was Paulo DaCosta, but he never used it. It’s one of the reasons I don’t use that surname anymore. It didn’t mean anything to him, and it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Reyna leaned forward. Al had never volunteered any personal information on her own. The sad thing was that such reticence wasn’t even unusual among demigods. Over the years, she had seen some very extreme reactions of demigods on references to their pasts.

Not that she had any right to judge.

Al listlessly plucked a chord of the violin. “The worst part was that he was a great dad. He really cared about me. After mom died, he just wasn’t the same. I used to think he was the best thing in the world since ice-cream. It was just… the way he saw the world, as a race, as a survival game, that you’re a con or a mark; that was what made me want to run away all the time. And that’s the reason I changed along the trip, because I morphed into the kind of person you thought I was, and the funny thing is that I never even had to try. It was as easy and as unconscious as breathing. An instinct, almost. It’s inbuilt into me. But you” her eyes had returned back to their X-ray like quality. “you don’t give a damn about what you want, do you? You want the truth, no matter what. That’s rare. One in a hundred people actually want what is real rather than what they want. People see what they want to see, always.”

The silence was as thick as the clouds hanging low over their heads. “Why didn’t you, then?”

Al looked up. “Why didn’t I what?”

Reyna frowned. “You said you wanted to run away. Why didn’t you?”

Al looked away towards the cliff. “Because of my sister. I couldn’t take her with me, and I couldn’t leave her.”

“Oh.” That was all she could bring herself to say. It was creepily close to what Hylla had told her years ago one of the many times they had fought.

_“If it hadn’t been for me, you would still have been stuck with dad and his stupid paranoid ghosts!” she had yelled at Hylla. “Stop treating me like a child!”_

_“If it hadn’t been for you I would have run away_ years _ago!” Hylla roared back. “You don’t know what half of it was like!”_

Al looked at her. “He hurt Hylla, didn’t he? And you panicked.”

Reyna clenched her fists. “Okay, now this is too much. How are you figuring it all out?”

“I speak Spanish.” Al suddenly seemed to be interested in her shoes. “I heard what you said, I saw the way you were standing, I saw how you looked to the right and panicked. I saw the horror on your face.”

It was her turn to feel bitter now. “I guess that was easy, then.”

Al chuckled. “A lot of things are easy when you know the logic behind them. The most unnoticeable things are more often than not the most obvious ones.”

“If you knew already, then why ask?”

Al seemed uncertain. “Maybe because I _want_ to trust you. Like it or not, you are still my ticket out of this place.”

Reyna laughed dryly. “Yeah, a ticket. I’m so glad you have such a high opinion of me.”

Al studied her face. “You spent some time at sea, you fought with Hylla and separated ways; her to the Amazons and you to Camp Jupiter; you returned home last year, that’s why you didn’t want to talk about San Juan. It makes perfect sense.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “We ran away from San Juan to the States, Puerto Rico is an island, we were at sea for some time. Not that big a feat.”

A spark of interest crept into Al’s face. “That’s not what I meant. I’m terrible at geography. You spent some time as sailors or whatever. You voice rasps when you get angry, like a sailor’s. You weren’t guests on a yacht, I’d say.”

Reyna suddenly felt unnerved. She could handle a physical fight, or do fairly well at a mental test but how do you stop an assault like Al’s, studying every move and drawing a thousand conclusions? Even if she told Al to shut up, it wouldn’t stop her from seeing everything anyway. “What else did you learn from your dad?”

Al pressed the tips of her fingers together, supporting her chin on them. “Uh… a lot of things, really. Pickpocketing, lock-picking, fraud, acting, voice modulation, hypnosis, shooting guns, how to keep a straight face while saying the most ridiculous things, hotwiring cars and bikes…”

“Wait.” Reyna stopped her. “You can hypnotize people?”

Al grinned. “Yeah. Don’t be alarmed, Praetor, I wouldn’t dream of doing that to you. Not when you have a nice gold spear with you.”

“That’s not what I was thinking. I just thought hypnosis wasn’t possible. It was, like a myth.”

Al gave her an are-you-kidding-me look. “Excuse me but you talk about gods and monsters and stuff and you think what _I’m_ saying isn’t real? Hypnosis is real, you just have to be very good.”

Reyna smirked. “And you think you’re very good, don’t you?”

Al’s eyes gleamed. “I’ve been helping my dad in the showbiz since I was five, Praetor. Twelve years. I think I’m moderately good. You haven’t seen me at my dad’s side, channeling my inner charlatan.”

Reyna couldn’t help the chuckle leaving her. “Seriously?” The idea of this geek being a part of a show seemed ridiculous.

Al’s intense gaze bored into her eyes. “Praetor, you have no idea what is possible. Think of it, the human brain is a wonderful thing. It is so difficult to know what exactly goes on in there.” Her voice was soft and slow, low in timbre, slightly monotonous, unlike her eyes, which were piercing. “Never dismiss what comes to mind, Praetor. Nothing, no matter how irrelevant, it may be. You never know when you might need it. Trust me, you can just relax, take a deep breath, and-” she suddenly stopped and snapped her fingers in front of her face.

It felt like when you were just about to fall sleep and someone shook you awake. Reyna jerked back like she had been slapped. “What the hell was that?”

Al grinned. “You challenged me, Praetor. I accepted.”

“Did you just try to hypnotize me?”

Al looked affronted. “When you say _try,_ I assume you mean awesomely succeeded within thirty seconds, and didn’t pry secrets because I am a nice and upfront person.”

A sudden thought struck her. “You called me Reyna earlier. Why did you go back to calling me Praetor?”

Al smiled as though at a private joke. “Because I call things as I see them. You were acting like Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. Now you’re acting like the Praetor of the Twelfth Legion.”

Reyna raised an eyebrow. “They are supposed to be different?”

Al grinned. “Of course. As different as day and night.”

Reyna crossed her arms. “Why would I tell you anything? I don’t know what _you_ are like. You keep making cryptic statements but you never say things that are actually useful.”

Al looked offended. “Are you calling all that I say useless, Praetor? I think you just don’t like me because I can read you but you can't read me.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. Al grinned. "Annoying you is a plus."

********************

Al was right.

As much as she hated to admit it, Al had been right about there being a difference between being the Praetor and being herself. Away from the Camp, she felt more relaxed than she had in months, even years. With time, she had built a reputation for herself, which she now had to maintain in front of the Legion. Here, she had no one looking at her constantly, and she could feel herself unwinding.

Al was sitting on the opposite end of the small fire they had managed to light. They generally avoided it, because they didn’t really need to send a flare for monsters to find them. Lighting the fire had been a headache. Al had all sorts of things in her pockets: lighters, twine, wires, random circuitry, scraps of paper, cellotape, a pen, transistors, a pencil, tiny resistors, some money in a wallet, an eraser, a handful of toffees, coins, crumpled notes, a deck of cards (seriously? Cards?), a makeshift compass, a railway ticket stub, a lump of clay and gods know what else. Finding the lighter had taken simply ages.

Al grinned. “Well, thank you.”

Reyna frowned. “What?”

“You were thinking that I’m right. And reflecting on the regrettable state of the various objects in my pockets. I thanked you for finally admitting that I’m right. Not sure which instance of my rightness you are referring to.”

“Can you stop doing that? It’s unnerving.”

Al seemed to consider it. “No.”

Reyna scowled at her.

“Not at camp, not the Praetor.” Al reminded her. “Come on, Reyna. I can't sleep, and by the looks of it neither can you. Tell me about you. I’m really curious. And hey,” she shrugged. “No load’s ever gotten heavier by sharing, has it?”

“What makes you think it’s a burden?”

Al frowned. “I don’t know. I just… know, I guess.”

Reyna shook her head. “I’m thinking you’re a daughter, or at least a legacy of Mercury.” A wave of defiance went through her. She didn’t need the help of someone who barely knew her, someone who was a rookie in the demigod world. “I don’t need your help.”

Al chuckled and looked over to the cliffside. “You know, I loved my dad.” she fell silent after that. Reyna wondered where this was going.

“I was always in awe of him. I thought he could wave his hand and make everything perfect. So much so that I literally begged him to teach me everything he knew. He was reluctant, but he did. And then,” a flash of regret passed through her face. “when I was seven, I became a part of my first real con. An old man whose granddaughter was dying of TB, and my dad did his ‘I am a psychic’ routine and pretended to heal her. I was kind of there to prove that his mumbo-jumbo worked, but the whole thing was a fake burn and colored wax. We left the place soon after that, and I didn’t think about it; not until I saw the old man again a couple of years later.” She laughed bitterly. “The kid didn’t make it. How could she have? And you know,” regret shone through her face. “I’ll never forget his face as he railed against my dad, shouting about his granddaughter’s death. He said that he’d never hurt another man in his life, but he’d kill my dad if he saw him again. The police had to drag the old man off my dad. For the first time, I felt ashamed to call that man my father. And for the first time, I felt horrified and ashamed of what I had done, what I had been a part of. After that, I tried to get away from that life as much as possible. I went to extreme ends to prove I wasn't like him. I studied Science, computers, kept trying to push away everything I knew as much as I could. And yet…” her voice trailed off. “And yet I can't count the number of times I’ve managed to get out of sticky situations by using what my dad taught me.”

“What I’m trying to say is,” she turned to Reyna. “Families can be difficult. That doesn’t mean they have to define you. You’ve made a name for yourself. Your father… I don’t know what your deal with him was, but, well, you’re beyond him now. Maybe it’s time you stepped out of his shadow.”

Reyna hesitated. _Maybe it’s time you came out of the shadows._ Something Jason had told Nico, which he said he had wished later he could do because he had started to become afraid of the darkness, because he might dissolve into it permanently.

And yet… how well did she know Al? The had barely known each other for a week. And yet Al was a close friend; not as close as Nico or Coach Hedge, but still a close friend. She’d seen what she had done and yet was asking for an explanation instead of making accusations like someone else might have. If she herself had to go on a quest with someone guilty of patricide, she would have liked to know the full story too.

What was it that Al had said? _You wanted to be fair, but your need to hide your real thoughts was more than your need to be fair._

Al was still looking at her, waiting for a response. Reyna steeled herself, and began talking.

The funny thing was, it wasn’t even that difficult. After telling her the San Juan part, the rest of it was pretty easy. She left out Venus’s curse. She wasn’t that insane. Al laughed at the part where she described the C.C. Resort and Spa, how Hylla managed to scare Blackbeard into letting them go, how Coach Hedge had earned money in Portugal with his martial arts, the farturas, the Hunters’ note after kidnapping her. Somehow she thought that being named Thalia was funny.

“Oh okay,” Al held up a hand. “Break time. What was her mom thinking when she was born? Like, what should I name my daughter? You know what? Wait! I’ll name her after the Muse of Comedy! Like, why?”

Reyna rolled her eyes as she forced back a chuckle. Talking to Al was like talking to a seven-year old, and then she’d suddenly say something which warned you to be wary of the keen intelligence inside.

When she was finally done, she tried to judge what Al was thinking. It was difficult to know, since Al’s face was impassive as ever. Finally she shook her head.

“Jesus, Reyna.” she stopped. “Your world is _way_ to crazy for me.”

Reyna frowned. “I just hope that this new threat isn’t too much to handle. The Camp can’t keep taking hits like this. It’ll destroy us.”

Al shrugged. “Fight that battle when you get there. Get some sleep, Praetor. My little CPU here” she tapped the side of her head. “will be processing information meanwhile.”

She picked up the violin, resting her chin on the wood and drawing the bow against the strings. It wasn’t a tune Reyna knew, but then, she had never been good at identifying music. It was a little happy, a little sad, a lonely melody in the stillness of the night.

******************

If she ever found the god who decided giving demigods visions during their sleep was a good idea, she wasn’t sure she could stop herself from stab him with a spear. What on earth happened to a peaceful night’s sleep?

She knows exactly where she is. She had heard enough about the place from Percy and Annabeth to know the Labyrinth when she saw it. An old man was walking next to her, an oil lamp in hand. His hair was white as snow, wrinkles creasing his face, neck branded with the figure of a bird, dressed in Ancient Greek style. Daedalus.

He walked straight ahead, like he knew the tunnel well. He touched a section of the wall, and a blue triangle, the Greek letter delta, glowed at his touch. A section of the wall rolled away, leaving another tunnel in front of him.

“This way, you say?” For a moment she thinks he’s talking to her. Then she remembers what Annabeth had said. _The Labyrinth is not just any maze. It’s a living, growing, structure, which spreads underneath cities around the world._ Daedalus was the creator of the Labyrinth. Communicating with it was probably possible for him. “Never saw this part before. Interesting.” Daedalus mumbled. He looks so old and tired, it’s as if he’s going to fall over any moment.

He steps into the tunnel, which slopes down steeply, lined with brick walls. Surprisingly, there are no traps like Hazel said, instead it is just one long tunnel going down, probably because of Daedalus. His footsteps echoed along the long tunnel, the oil lamp in his hand the only source of light in the distance.

Daedalus stumbled over something, almost falling down. He raised his lamp just in time to see a skeleton before it crumbled to dust. Whoever it was had been dead for a long, long time.

They had been walking for so long now that it made her wonder how Daedalus was able to walk this distance, given his age. Just as she thought he was going to keel over and collapse, they came to a large door set into the rock wall where the tunnel ended abruptly.

Daedalus raised his lamp and looked at the stone door. “Not my design.” He murmured. “Then who-” he walked down to the door and pressed it with the flat of his palm. There was a large, rumbling sound as the door groaned and swung forward slowly.

Inside was a large room, completely made of black volcanic rock. There was a stone bench in the center of the room, upon which some dust-covered objects were scattered. The whole place had a musty smell, like no one had been here for a long time. Tiny burnt-out lamps were arranged at regular intervals in the place. Other than that, the room was completely empty.

Daedalus hobbled over to the bench, and picked up a scroll of paper, discolored with time. He gently unrolled the scroll, blowing the dust away. The lines on his forehead deepened as he looked at the writing. “So strange.” He muttered. “I have never seen-”

There was a sudden crash from behind. The old inventor immediately straightened up and looked behind. He grabbed the objects from the bench and hurriedly started walking towards the door.

She felt something tugging her from the cave. She struggled to remain there, to learn more, but the force was very persistent. Her eyes snapped open and she scowled at Al tapping her forehead.

“Knock, knock, anyone home?”

Reyna groaned. “Who wakes up people by knocking on their foreheads?”

“People who shook people awake before and nearly got strangled for their efforts, and now have learnt to maintain a safe distance from person being awoken. You take the whole ‘grumpy in the morning’ thing to another level.”

Reyna glared at her. “I’m not ‘grumpy’. What are you, five years old?”

“Plus twelve, sleepyhead. Wake up, I want out of this place.”

The dreams came back to her. “I think I figured out what’s inside the cave.”

Al looked skeptical. “Without setting a foot inside? Crazy demigod stuff, I believe. What is it?”

“The Labyrinth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Tell me what you think about this new chapter. I kinda wrote it in bits and pieces, so I'm not really sure if it's good in the continuity grade. I'm not sure. Maybe later, if I feel it's too disjoint, I'll take it down and rewrite it. On the other hand, I felt that this fic is slightly low on action, so that is what I aim to correct in the next chapter.  
> NOTE: The author is on a two week hiatus to give exams on stuff like difference in configuration of enantiomers and diastereomers, because apparently yes, that's a real thing. (Rolls eyes). But I promise I'll come back to this fic immediately. The idea won't leave me alone, which is why I wrote this fic in the first place.  
> 


	16. Chapter XVI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo! My exams just got over, and I'm right back on this story. Updates will resume from now onwards. I'm estimating that this fic will have around 20 chapters, after which I'll begin on part 2.

**REYNA**

“This is it. This is what my life has become. My grave has been built, my feet are about to give way, and here my corpse shall lie for all eternity.”

Reyna groaned. “Shut up, Al, we’ve only been walking for twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes of pure hell. We are completely lost.”

“No, we aren’t. All we have to do is go down.”

Al rolled her eyes. “Down. What an excellent idea. It has always been my life’s ambition to become a mole.”

“Al, I swear to the gods, if I hear _one_ more comment-”

Al tried giving her the pleading brown puppy eyes. “But _I’m bored!_ I can’t help it.”

Reyna let her spear swing sideways and whack Al’s knees. Al yelped and grabbed her leg. “Ow! What the hell?”

She couldn’t help the grin on her face. “My palms are sweaty. I can’t help it.”

Al glared at her and muttered something about psycho purple ninjas.

A flash of movement from the side caught her attention. “Did you see that?”

Al frowned. “Um… see what?”

“The correct answer to that question is no. Move faster.”

Al scowled at her. “After you hit me?”

“For gods’ sake, Al, just keep walking along.”

Al stood up straight. “Yeah, small problem. Where the hell’s the exit?”

The path they had been following had disappeared completely. Instead they were now in a circular chamber with no exits, the only light coming from her imperial gold spear.

Al did a three-sixty degree turn. “Now what? We clap our hands and sing the macarena?”

Reyna gave her the worst wolf stare she could. She was pretty sure that the glare that she was giving Al was supposed to incinerate her. Sadly, she was facing Al’s back and she didn’t get the message. Al brought out the sword she’d taken from the Cyclopes.

A loud metallic clang sounded from somewhere to her left. Reyna raised her spear, casting light on the wall, but there was nothing to be seen.

“DOWN!” she felt herself being pushed to the ground by another figure. An axe whizzed past, blowing air in her face as it went by. It landed on the opposite wall and pierced the thick stone, the same height as her. If she were still standing, she would have been beheaded.

Al was crouched next to her, eyes wide in alarm. “What the _hell_ is going on? Can I check myself into Bedlam already?”

Reyna got back to her feet. “Come on, we don’t have time. There will be more traps.”

Al dusted her jeans as she got up. “Thank you, Al, you saved my life. If it weren’t for you, I would be dead, I am forever indebted to you. Thanks for being so alert and-”

Just then Reyna grabbed her jacket and pulled her back by the hood as an arrow whistled past in front of her eyes.

Al sniffed. “I’ll retain my dignity and shut up.”

Reyna scoffed. “What dignity?”

Al, being the mature adult she was, stuck her tongue out at her. “O Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano, Praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, Daughter of Bellona, of the Fourth Cohort of Camp Jupiter, Horse Friend, how shalt we find our path out of this circular conundrum?”

“Well, actually, I think you should ask me that question.”

They both whirled around to find a man standing behind them. The first thing she noticed was his faces. Faces, plural, as in there were two of them. They jutted from either side of his head, staring over his shoulders, so his head looked like it had been stretched. He had overlapping ears and matching sideburns. He was dressed like a doorman to a fancy showroom; long black overcoat, shiny black shoes and a rather ridiculous top hat which somehow seemed to fit him.

He rubbed his hands together. “Well, well.” The right smiling face said. “What do we have here?”

“More demigods.” The left scowling face said. “They are everywhere, those pests.”

Reyna recognized him. “You’re Janus. God of doorways and choices.”

The left face snorted. “How many two-headed gods do you know, demigod?”

“Don’t mind him, godling.” The right face reassured. “He’s a little grouchy.”

“Whoa.” Al raised her hand. “Time-out. Are you seriously fighting with yourself?”

“Of course not, you silly thing!” The left face scowled even more. “We are giving you a choice.”

Al frowned. “What choice? Being a bore or having a sense of humor?”

Reyna groaned internally. Al seemed to have a death wish big as a mountain.

Two doorways opened behind Janus. They were rectangular hollows set in the stone wall of the chamber, completely identical, with nothing but darkness behind.

“Urm…” Al looked at her for help. “But they’re the same.”

Janus (his right-facing head) laughed. “That’s cute. Of course they’re the same. They both converge, after all.”

“So what difference does it make?” Reyna had always thought that the way some demigods at Camp Jupiter would go and toss a coin in his shrine asking for guidance was ridiculous. Janus was well-known for enjoying the confusion of others, and handing your fate in the gods’ hands was _not_ a sensible thing to do.

The left face turned to Al. “That is _your_ choice, godling. Do you believe that the end justifies the means? Or do you think it is the journey that matters, and the end is just a part of it?”

Al looked more confused than ever. “Well, it depends, I think, on what you’re talking about.”

Janus chuckled. “This is a yes or no question, my dear. There is no ambiguity.”

Al looked hesitant. “I guess it does matter how you go about it, right? ‘End justifies the means’ is pretty ambiguous.”

The left face grunted. “This one’s new. The older ones, now, they never have any time. It’s always rush, rush, rush. But then you didn’t really have a choice, kid. The first guy took one way, so you’d have to take the other.”

They exchanged a confused look. “Who, now? And why does my choice depend on him? And if the decision had already been made, why the hell did you ask me?”

Janus waved his hands, and the left doorway disappeared. “You may proceed.” His form started to flicker and fade.

Al looked completely lost now. “Wait! What the hell did you mean? Can't you even-”

“May the gods be with you.” Janus completely disappeared.

Al turned around. “What the hell was that? And what is the point of saying ‘may the gods be with you’ if you are the god and you’re fading away? Is that demigod speak for ‘ _and may the odds be ever in your favor! You can die now!’_ ”

Reyna tried to quell the uneasy feeling in her gut. Judging from Al’s expression, she wasn’t able to hide it. “Why are you nervous?” Al’s voice was wary.

Reyna hesitated. “Janus came to seek you out. That’s not good. Either he was messing with you, or you’re going to be in serious trouble soon.”

Al shrugged. “Meh. I’m always in trouble. I _create_ trouble. Can we keep walking now? Standing around discussing the future freaks me out.”

********************

They were completely lost.

Then again, they didn’t really have a choice. They didn’t have Ariadne’s string, or a mortal who could see through Mist handy.

Plunging into the maze unprepared was foolish, but they didn’t have options. On the other hand, Reyna was worried that she was leading Al to her death. Al might the same age as her, but she was about as trained as she had been when she was eight.

But most people weren’t children of Bellona, nor were they raised in a military-style home which was pretty much a miniature fort. But the whole thing was still frustrating as hell. Scratch that, even the Underworld would be less frustrating.

They had decided to stop for the time being, exhausted by the steep pathways and traps that they triggered every five feet. They’d pulled each other out of danger far more times than she cared to count.

Al peered into the little bundle they had gathered before entering the Labyrinth. “Do you want something to eat?” she asked while rummaging through the contents. “There’s fruit, fruit, fruit, and you will _never_ guess this one, more fruit.”

Reyna sighed. She wasn’t in the mood for jokes or sarcasm, and Al seemed to thrive on those two qualities. She wondered whether this was Juno’s idea of a joke, to try and find out how long she would last before she lost her temper. She’d probably start a betting pool. If Al had been a legionnaire, Reyna would have got to her a dozen times for discipline. But Al had never had any contact with a mythological creature or encountered or had dreams of wolves, which meant that she was probably a Greek demigod.

Al seemed to pick up on her mood. “All right. I’ll take first watch. Would it kill you to laugh a little?”

Reyna scowled. “Well, not all of us live in a happy world. I don’t think you realize the mess we’re in.”

Al shook her head. “On the contrary, I know exactly how screwed up this situation is. That doesn’t mean I have to spend my time moping.” She took out some electronic parts from her jacket and fiddled with the wires. “I just don’t happen to care.” She twisted a few wires and frowned. “Go to sleep, Praetor. You are ruining my happy shell.”

Reyna rolled her eyes and lay down next to the wall. She hadn’t realized how tired she was, and didn’t even know when she fell asleep.

*****************

She woke up to Al shaking her. “Wake up. And don’t you dare strangle me again.”

Reyna woke up and looked around her. “What?”

Al’s eyes had the same sparkle to them that Annabeth’s and Leo’s got when they had managed to figure something out. She stared. Al’s hand was wedged into the wall. Al grinned. She closed her eyes and pulled her hand out, like the wall was an illusion.

Reyna hesitated and hit a fist against the wall. It was rock solid. “What the hell?”

Al rubbed her hands. “So you remember that part where you told me about that Pacify chick-”

“Pasiphae.”

“That’s the one. And how she raised the Labyrinth but Hazel Levesque manipulated it using the Mist? Well, here’s the rub, Pasiphae was a witch, Daedalus was an inventor. His stuff would be mostly mechanical. The Labyrinth took thousands of years to reach the size it did. No way it suddenly got growing so fast, right? I mean, imagine the kind of energy that would take.”

Reyna nodded. “You’re right, but could you _please_ get to the point?”

Al was definitely in mad-scientist mode now. “Well, look at this, the Mist is in your head, right? It’s what you _think_ you see. But what if your head was so confused it couldn’t think of anything? You’d see what was real, right?”

“Right.”

Al spread her hands wide like a magician. “Behold!”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘if your head is so confused it can't think of anything’?”

Al sat down. “Well, roughly speaking, the ampulla of your semicircular canals is responsible for the dynamic balance of your body, depending upon movement of fluid in your inner ear. The cristae ampullaris detect acceleration in three perpendicular planes; superior, horizontal and posterior similar to the x-y-z planes-”

Reyna could already feel her head spinning. She grabbed Al’s hand. “Al, English.”

“That _was_ English.” Al muttered. “Well, the shorter version is that sometimes you are spinning round and round, and the world seems to be spinning even after you stop, or if you’re drunk, or something like that, your brain would not be able to judge your position accurately. That’s kind of what I tried to do. Not get drunk, the other one. It works. The whole damn thing is an illusion, or a bloody good VR machine if that’s how you want to look at it.”

Reyna tried to piece her thoughts together. “So you spun yourself in circles and ran headfirst into a wall?”

Al rubbed her head. “It didn’t work the first time round, but it worked later. I just needed some time.” She grinned. Reyna knew that look, it was the look that Leo or Percy got before they did something completely insane. “Care to accompany me, Praetor?”

Reyna narrowed her eyes. “I will _not_ spin around like a lunatic and run into a wall.”

Al took something out of her pocket. “I never asked you to.”

Reyna looked at the devices. They were short thick tubes with a funnel-like openings at one end. “What the _hell_ are those?”

Al simply walked over to her and placed the two tubes around her ears. There was a buzzing sound, and it felt like her whole head was vibrating. The world started spinning in and out of focus. She felt someone grab her arm and pull her into the shadows.

******************

The plan worked perfectly well until they fell into a pit. All along she had a feeling that they were rushing down. Her head was still spinning, but the effects of whatever Al had done were wearing off. She was still feeling a little disoriented, so it took her a few moments to get up. She staggered to her feet and leant against the wall. Al groaned. “I think this is where the real part of the Labyrinth is.”

“If you do that to me again, I swear to the gods I will kill you.” Reyna was almost growling now. She could feel a headache forming.

Al dragged herself to her feet. “I think I need to work on that. The side-effects are a little tricky, but hey, I put that together in about an hour with zero lighting. It’s decent. I could probably weaponize it if I needed to.” She noticed Reyna’s glare. “If you’re still wondering what that was, it was just a little thingummybob to throw your cochlear fluid or whatever into a nice swirl. It sends vibrations near your ears that causes the endolymph to-”

Reyna shook her head. “I don’t even want to know.” She looked around. They had fallen from a ledge about twenty feet above. They were lucky they hadn’t broken something. Like all other corridors, this one was completely dark, the only light available coming out of their weapons. The corridor stretched into darkness, completely silent. The walls were rough black stone, with scratch marks along some of them.

Suddenly there was a loud metallic clang from the darkness. Al set off towards it, sword raised high for light. Reyna followed, barely able to see in front of her hands. She stumbled and cursed. Whatever Al had done to her head was slow in withdrawing its effects.

“Stop cussing like a sailor, Rey. Honest to goodness, my ma would have washed my mouth for saying stuff like that.”

“Don’t call me Rey.”

“Whatever, purple ninja.”

“Al, I swear-”

“You can swear all you want later. Look at this.” al raised her sword higher. The metal cast a glow on a heavy stone door. There was nothing to distinguish it except for a blue triangle at the side. “Delta. Delta for Daedalus?”

Reyna pressed a hand to the symbol. “I hope so.” The door slowly started opening with a groan. “How did you see this, anyway? It’s almost invisible in the dark.”

Al seemed surprised. “What do you mean? It’s glowing blue. The whole damn floor is kinda blue.”

Reyna stared. “Al, there isn’t any blue glow.”

Al crossed her arms. “It’s blue. Light blue, just like that symbol. You _can_ see the symbol, right?”

Reyna nodded. “I can see that. But I still don’t see any blue glow on the ground.”

Al shook her head. “There’s a trail. Kinda faint, but there. And I like blue. Not the light blue things, but I like dark blue, and in this black background, blue is okay.”

“Not another blue person.” Reyna muttered. “As if one wasn’t enough.”

Al rolled her eyes. “Ever lived a carnie life, praetor? Every damn thing is red and yellow and green and so fricking bright and cheery that it makes me like dark blues and blacks and purples and stuff.”

“And you enjoy being a contrary person, don’t you?”

Al slipped through the open door. “I think of this as the depth of the darkness and bitterness of my soul. Are we talking or walking?”

Al stopped as soon as she entered. Reyna slipped through the door to stand next to her. The sight made her freeze in her tracks.

In front of her was what could have been a scene from old Rome, with a wide courtyard paved in perfect rectangles, a stone fountain in the centre with water spouting from the centre. There were some plants around, and a number of couches were placed around the courtyard. Music played from the corner. There wasn’t any sign of the sun, but the place was bright like a sunny day.

But what made her stop were the ghosts, the sheer number of them floating around. Children ran around, chasing each other. Older men lounged on the couches eating ghostly fruits while others stood around, talking to each other. Ghostly serving girls darted around the place, going from one corner to the other.

The ghosts stopped and looked at them. It was like time had frozen. The silence was deafening. Reyna forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down. She dealt with the Lares at Camp Jupiter all the time. These ghosts were harmless.

_Murderer. Traitor. You can never flee your crime._

_Shut up,_ she told herself sternly.

Al broke the tense silence. “Um, hi?”

The ghosts rose from their seats, reaching for their weapons. “Okay, bad idea.” Al muttered as she scooted back.

“Who are you? What brings you here?” One ghost that looked like the ring leader stepped forward.

Reyna debated the best way to talk to the ghosts. She didn’t want to anger a bunch of ghosts that had weapons. They were clearly Roman, which meant that they would probably accept the authority of the Legion. “Friends, Romans, Countrymen?” suggested Al.

Reyna glared at her. “I am Praetor Ramirez-Arellano of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. We wish to move forward.” Reyna kept her voice as steady as she could. “We request passage for our quest through the Labyrinth.”

The ghost smiled. “Of course you do. It is rare that I see a legionnaire these days. Mostly it’s just the monsters who some here and tear up our stuff. Seeing a demigod makes me feel happy. Normally, I might have let you part with my blessings.”

Al tightened her grip on her sword. “ _Normally_?”

The ghost sighed as he pulled out his sword. “I’m afraid this is a special case. You see, someone has paid a high price for your heads, my dear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said there would be action in this chapter, but the scenes I wrote were super-cringeworthy, so they will probably be a part of the next one after a lot of editing. I'll try for weekly updates, but I'm feeling a bit bogged down by all the homework and projects that are late for submission, so updates might be slow.


	17. Chapter XVII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit. I promised an update each week, and I haven't updated for ten days now. Really sorry about that, but hopefully there won't be delays in the next chapter. Hopefully.

**AL**

Al hated her life. She positively detested it.

She had gone to sleep after a normal day, in her normal room, in her perfectly ordinary bed, and woken up to this insane world.

She loved logical things. She really did. It was why she was so good at mathematics and computers. She could remember almost unending strings of information as long as there was a logical thread to them, no matter how complex. Even when she was with her dad as a part of a travelling carnival, she had known one thing; she wanted out.

Not because she hated that life. The truth was that she loved it. She loved the people, the constant movement, the opportunity to visit new places. She didn’t care that they couldn’t afford nice things, that there was rarely enough money to go around, that the days were long and the work was hard. She was more comfortable in a bunk in the corner of a trailer rather than in a bed. But the work was the same, the carnival was the same, and after a few years it had become downright monotonous. The only highlights had been when her dad planned a con.

She’d only gone to school for two years; one when she was seven and the second when she was eleven. She’d spent hours in libraries and labs and become so good with electronics that soon she was pretty much responsible for fixing any electrical mishaps that happened during the carnival. She’d even managed to develop home automation and security systems for ordinary appliances when she was thirteen on a laptop retrieved from a dumpster, way before smart plugs came out.

After her dad had died and her world went to shit, she’d managed to provide for herself and her sister by doing odd jobs around, fixing stuff and selling software she’d developed, working at garages, amidst a hundred other things. After her sister died, she had gone on a downward spiral into crime, but still, she’d based her whole life on logic.

And there was really _no_ logical explanation for how she managed to get herself into this situation.

After the crazy Roman ghosts had attacked, she’d tried her best to fight them off. Reyna had taken out her javelin and started to fight like the devil. She, on the other hand, had made a fool of herself.

In her defense, she was completely out of her depth. She performed best at a desk with a computer or a notebook and a pen. Or even in front of a locked door with a pin in her hand. Fighting with a sword against a bunch of dead Roman guys in an underground maze? Not so much.

Which was why she’d tried to stab a dead dude, gotten slammed by a sword instead, tripped over her feet, and been knocked out and carried to some underground cell. Because apparently, she was wanted alive.

Why was there a price on her head? Why was she involved in all this craziness? Who was so interested in meeting her? Why did her life suck so much?

The ghosts didn’t really seem to be smart. They’d locked a former thief in a cell with a padlock. A _padlock_. It was almost insulting. It had taken her a grand total of twenty-two seconds to pick that lock. She could have done it in fifteen if her head didn’t hurt so much.

That was the easy part. She’d then tried to follow the blue trail she’d seen earlier to see where it led. She felt bad about abandoning Reyna to the ghosts like that, but she really had no idea where the ghost room might be. Besides, she would actually be a hindrance in a fight. Her sword and Reyna’s knife had been taken away, and her only weapon was a nineteenth century violin of unknown origin.

Which still didn’t explain why the next hallway had a giant snake in it.

All right, it wasn’t really a hallway. It was the size of a giant stone ballroom, except like the inside of a creepy temple. And the snake. Did she mention the snake?

Her best guess was that the snake thing was guarding something. She decided to turn around and try to find another way, but of course, the door _had_ to disappear, and the snake just _had_ to notice her. Suddenly she wished she’d stopped herself from exploring without Reyna.

Now she was stuck in a closed room with a giant snake, no way out, no weapons, and no purple Roman ninja at her side. She doubted the snake would appreciate her attempt at music, given that she’d be taught by a former-gypsy-turned-carnie.

The snake was about fifty feet long and ten feet wide, a hundred yards in front of her, long and scaly, black in color, and it gave her the creeps. To be honest, everything in this world gave her the creeps. She just wanted to run as far as she could from this nightmare.

But she was sick of running.

She was sick of hiding behind Reyna waiting for her to deal with all of her problems. She was sick of making a fool of herself everywhere and pretending that it didn’t matter. She was sick of this whole situation. She just wanted to go back to her sane, rational world.

If she had to go down, she might as well go down fighting.

*****************

That resolution lasted for a grand total of two minutes. As soon as the snake displayed its forked tongue, it was over.

The only thing that went through her mind was, ‘RUN!’

She got a grip on the wall and tried to get as far away from the snake as possible. She was really grateful for all the carvings on the wall. They made great niches for her fingers and feet to climb up. She could hear hissing from behind her, but she didn’t dare to look back. If she did, she’d freeze and never be able to move. Instead, she focused on the wall in front of her. It wasn’t until she saw a black shadow to her right that she risked a glance in that direction. She almost fell off the wall.

The snake was ten feet in front of her, and it was rapidly making its way even closer.

She did the only thing she could. She jumped.

Big mistake.

She’d forgotten how big the snake was. She fell right onto its scaly coils. Before she could even climb her way out of them, they tightened around her, pinning her arms to their sides, squeezing the air out of her chest, rendering her completely immobile.

She tried to squirm her way out of its grip, but that only made the snake crush her even more. The violin case was digging uncomfortably into her back. There was nothing she could do as it lifted her higher into the air, closer towards its face. She could feel herself panicking. She thrashed against the scales, but the coils tightened even more, making it impossible for her to breathe.

And all the time, the snake just kept bringing her closer to its fangs.

She could feel herself getting overwhelmed by fear. She could smell the stink coming from the snake’s mouth. She could see the venom forming near the tips of the long fangs. She drew her arms closer to her chest and in a desperate attempt, punched the part wrapped around her as hard as she could in the limited space.

She wasn’t really sure what happened after.

Maybe it was panic. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the sheer absurdity of her situation. Maybe her powers from her unknown godly parent only kicked in under duress. Whatever it was, the snake dropped her.

She stared at her hands, which were shrouded in black flames. Tongues of flame danced across her palms, occasionally leaping up and settling down again. Her fingers tingled, like pins and needles were coming to life there. She stared, mesmerized, at the pitch-black fire shrouding her hands. She suddenly heard a hissing sound from her right. She snapped out of her trance and turned.

How the reptile managed to creep upon her so silently was a mystery. She closed her eyes and focused on the fire in her hands.

_More,_ she thought. _Burn more._

The flames crept up to her elbows. She raised her hands and grinned. “All right, Fang Face. It’s on.”

The snake lunged at her, faster than it should be able to. She barely had time to dive to the side before its jaws snapped at the place where her head was a second ago. She raised her hands and imagined the fire blasting out of her hands.

A thick column of flames shot from her palms towards the monster. It hissed and reared back, surprised to receive a mouthful of flames instead of a tasty demigod snack. She suddenly felt tired, like she’d just carried a large box and thrown it at the monster.

Her arms were completely on fire now. She tried to restrain the flames, to bring them back to elbow level. The flames just crept over her shoulders. She felt a brief surge of panic; she didn’t want to burn up completely.

_Calm._ Her father’s advice from all those years ago when she first became his apprentice resounded in her head. _Relax. Focus on what you want to do._ The flames crept back to her elbows, but it was like trying to hold back a river after the dam was broken.

Also, she couldn’t keep the monster at bay like this forever. Sooner or later the fire (again, no clue what the hell that was) was going to give out. She needed a plan.

The snake tried for another go, its body coiling around her. But she was prepared this time, and jumped on top of the moving coils. As soon its heads came into firing range, she let out the biggest blast that she could. It hit the reptile right inside its mouth.

She wasn’t really sure what happened next.

She was pretty sure that some of the venom fell on her shoulder. And it burned like acid.

Five years ago, the gas explosion that killed her father left her with glass in her right shoulder. Between running away, looking after her sister, and being broke, she never got the shards out. By the time she could, it was too late, and removing it would be far more painful than letting it be. Most of the time, it didn’t bother her, but there were still some bad days.

Poison didn’t really help.

She staggered back until she hit a stone wall. The snake had retreated for now, hissing and watching her.

_It’s waiting for the poison to do its work,_ she realized. Her shoulder was burning with pain, and she could feel her world going darker.

She tried to stand erect, but her legs were shaking too badly. Her vision dimmed at the edges, and her head pounded. She felt like she was going to throw up.

It was a crazy, desperate, attempt. She launched herself at the snake and allowed the flames to take over completely. She saw the snake’s fangs getting closer, and the world went black.

***************

When she woke up, the place was gone.

Just gone.

Like it never existed.

Had she been hallucinating?

The place was completely bare, just a long black hall with nothing in it. She sat up and checked her shoulder. There was nothing; no burn mark, no open wound, no trace of poison. But the sleeve was torn through. Damn. She liked that jacket. Her shoulder still ached and she felt tired, like at the end of a long day, but it was as though it had just healed itself.

She staggered to her feet and looked around. There was no way out of the place except for a small square hole in the center. She stumbled over to the hole and peered into it. It was far too dark to see anything. She stretched her hand into the hole, knuckles scraping against the cold stone side. Her fingers brushed against something wedged into the hollow, cold and metallic. She gripped it and drew it out of the hole.

Juno’s sword. Or rather the one she sent them to retrieve. Semantics, really.

She heard the scraping sound of a door opening behind her. She turned and saw the same hallway from which she’d entered. At least, that was what she thought it was.

She had to admit, she was rather surprised. Given Reyna’s description, she expected it to be a bit more difficult. It could be a trap. On the other hand, she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She ignored her hesitation and ran down the hallway, trying to find her way back.

****************

Al was impressed.

Last she saw, there had been close to two hundred ghosts lounging in the Roman square. Now barely two dozen remained. God bless purple Roman pirate ninjas.

Reyna was standing near the narrow opening of the large doorway, backed by walls on almost three sides. It limited her movement but it also meant that she had to fend off attacks from only one direction.

The ghost had rather one-track brains. They didn’t even notice her coming from behind. Her free hand burst into flames. She lifted the sword and swung it at the nearest ghost, who dissolved into shadows. Reyna noticed her and nodded.

A few of the ghosts split from the group and tried to make their way behind her. She copied Reyna’s idea and backed up against the opposite wall. Considering everything, she wasn’t doing too badly. She _loved_ this sword. It seemed to give off an aura that made the ghosts hesitate to attack her, and turned to shadows as soon as her sword touched them, leaving behind all manner of weapons and spoils. She grinned as the last one disappeared with a hiss.

She glanced around and saw Reyna fending off the last batch of ghosts. One of them had managed to sneak behind her and was raising his sword. She was too busy fighting another to notice or do anything about it.

Al didn’t think. She grabbed a fallen knife from the ground and threw it. It spun, blade over handle, and lodged itself in the ghost’s chest just as the sword came down. The ghost turned to dust, the sword clattering to the ground. Reyna stabbed the last ghost with her spear and gave her a grateful look.

Al grinned and gave her a showman’s bow. “Glad to be of assistance, Praetor.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “Is that-”

Al nodded. “Yeah.” She swung it again. “It’s totally cool.”

Reyna sighed. “You know we have to give it to Juno, right?”

Al shrugged. She held up her hand, which was still burning. “Any ideas about my parentage?”

Reyna frowned. “Pluto, perhaps? But I’ve never seen Nico or Hazel do that. Besides, a child of the Big Three, undetected for so long? If it were your mom who was your godly parent I’d say Hecate, but you say your mom-”

“Was hundred percent mortal.”

Reyna shook her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps some minor god then. You’ll probably be claimed soon.”

Al smiled and started walking away, but she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in her gut. The way that room had simply disappeared when she lost control didn’t seem like the power of a minor god. She shook her head and tried to clear her mind. She was just being a paranoid idiot. It was all going to be fine.

She had no idea how wrong she was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first time that I wrote from Al's POV. Tell me what you think. I'm also undecided whether to write the next chapter from Reyna's POV or Al's. Most probably Reyna, followed by Al, followed by an epilogue or something. This fic will have 20 chapters, after which, I'll start the second part of this series.


	18. Chapter XVIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some crack and angst... because I need them to get out of the Labyrinth, really. And, WOOHOO! I updated on time!

**REYNA**

Reyna hated ghosts.

It was ridiculous, really. She’d been in the Legion for almost five years. The Lares at Camp Jupiter didn’t really understand the concept of personal space. She should have been used to spirits of the dead by now.

For a brief moment when the ghosts had surged towards her, she froze, unable to think of anything but the spirits in the balcony of her old home in San Juan.

Al had sliced the first ghost into dust with her sword. That had snapped her out of her thoughts. After that, her mind had gone on autopilot, slash, parry, jab, duck.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Al getting knocked out and carried away. She cursed under her breath. Getting separated in the Labyrinth was _not_ an ideal situation.

All her attention had become focused on the ghosts in front of her. She backed into a corner; hopefully no one would be able to get the slip on her. The crowd of ghosts was nearly endless. She could feel herself tiring out, and the ghosts just kept coming.

She didn’t really know how long she had been fighting. The crowd had thinned out, and she counted roughly two dozen ghosts. Without warning, a door opened from the opposite end, and Al stumbled out a few moments later. Reyna stabbed another ghost in the gut and looked over at her. She didn’t look good. Her face was pale and sweating, her hand tightly gripping a sword, and… were her hands on _fire?_ And was the fire black?

Al crossed over to her corner and sliced through half a dozen ghosts with the new sword. The ghosts simply seemed to _melt_ into the sword, like they were dissolving into it, like Nico’s blade. A few ghosts broke away and tried to circle around Al, who backed into a corner.

Reyna turned and slammed her sword into a ghost’s armor, kicking his weapon away as her sword turned back into a javelin, stabbing him through a crack in his armor. She turned to face the last ghost in front of her. Just as she was stabbing it, she noticed a dagger spinning through the air toward her. It hit the wall just above her shoulder, a blast of air blowing from behind as a sword clattered to the ground in front of her. She stabbed the last ghost and tried to catch her breath. Al probably just saved her life with a carnival trick. Al seemed to read her mind; she did a flourish and a showman’s bow. Reyna rolled her eyes at her antics, but she couldn’t help but smile.

She looked at the sword in her hand. “Is that-”

“Juno’s sword? Yeah. It’s totally cool.”

Reyna sighed. “You know we have to give it to Juno, right?”

Al shrugged. She seemed to be more interested in who her godly parent was rather than the actual quest. Reyna had to admit that her powers were slightly strange. She had only seen children of Trivia do something like this, but anything they touched didn’t automatically turn to nothing. She wasn’t sure even Hazel or Nico could do something like this. Besides no way there was a child of the Big Three the same age as Percy and Jason who went unnoticed.

They walked for some distance in silence. They didn’t really know where they were going, and it didn’t really matter. They just needed to find an exit, wherever it happened to be.

Apparently, silence wasn’t really Al’s forte, because she turned, walking backwards. “Want to see a magic trick?”

Reyna sighed. “No.”

“Aw, come on. I’m feeling _bored._ Out of my mind. Bad things happen around me when I’m bored.”

“Bad things happen around you, period.”

“Hey!”

Reyna grinned. It felt good to be the person poking others once in a while, instead of the one supposed to act like an adult. Al fell silent for a few seconds.

“I just destroyed a full room, and I don’t even know how I did it.” Al looked serious for once.

Reyna frowned. “What do you mean?”

Al rubbed her thumb against the hilt of the sword. “I don’t really know. It just… happened I guess. One moment this snake had me in a tight grip, and the next moment it lets me go and my hands are on fire. Then I attacked, and some poison got on my shoulder, and I lost control. I think I passed out. When I woke up, the place was gone. Just gone. And this sword was there.” She glanced at Reyna. “What’s going on, Reyna?”

Reyna bit her lip. “I’m not really sure. I think you’re a daughter of Mercury and perhaps a legacy of Trivia. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.”

“Trivia? You mean I’m descended from a quiz?

Reyna rolled her eyes. “The _goddess_ Trivia, as in the Roman form of Hecate.”

Al smiled. “And Mercury because…”

“You look like trouble.”

“Hey!” Al protested. “I’m not _that_ bad!”

Reyna snickered and turned into another corridor. It was comparatively modern, with cement walls and floor, like an underground subway tunnel.

She lost her smile as soon as she saw the ghost. One that made her freeze in her tracks. Suddenly she felt like a ten-year old, realizing that her life was never going to be the same again.

“Papa?”

**************

This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. Her father was dead. Had been dead long before she lifted her sword against him, nearly seven years ago in San Juan. She could feel panic overwhelming her. Her father was glowering down at her, dressed military-style, looking like he always did whenever she and Hylla were in trouble. He looked furious, and she felt as though everything about her was being stripped away, the quest to return the Athena Parthenos, the Giant War, the years at Camp Jupiter, the months on the pirate ship, the time at Circe’s island, leaving behind only the scared ten-year old she had been.

She couldn’t face her father. She couldn’t. She turned to look at Al. Al’s eyes were also fixed in front of her, emotions running through her face transparently. Guilt, grief, anger, like the person in front of her haunted her dreams. And yet… and yet something was wrong.

Al was staring at the same person, but something about her gaze was strange, like the person _she_ was seeing was about four feet tall.

Julian Ramirez-Arellano was _definitely_ not four feet tall.

Reyna took a deep breath. She heard Hylla’s voice telling her to stay strong as she opened the trapdoor from the Amazon base into their home. She heard Nico reassuring her that her father was dead way before that fateful night in Puerto Rico. She glanced at Al, who was still frozen in place.

Something was wrong here. Al had never met her father. Then why was she looking like she had been stabbed?

She pushed thoughts of her father away from her mind and looked at his ghost again. For once, she tried to remember Circe’s training. _Focus._ She tried to see it from Al’s perspective. The image of her father flickered and another ghost took its place.

For a second, a wild idea of clones and de-aging ran through her head, because that ghost was _Al_. Or what Al must have looked about ten years ago. She had the same dark brown-black hair, the same deep brown eyes, the same facial structure.

Al’s sister. She looked so much like Al. The only difference between them was that Al’s hair was cropped short like a boy’s and curly, while her sister’s was longer, about shoulder length and straighter.

Al took a couple of steps forward, almost like she was in a trance. Reyna grabbed Al’s hand, pulling her back. Something was very wrong here.

Al gave her a confused look and snatched her arm away. She took a step forward and said something in a language Reyna didn’t understand. Portuguese, maybe? DaCosta was a Portuguese name. The only word she could distinguish was Amy. That must be her sister’s name. Reyna took a deep breath and grabbed her javelin. The ghost flickered back into her father’s form.

His voice was colder than anything she had heard before. “Murderer.” He hissed. “Would you kill me again?”

Reyna gripped her javelin. She tried to remember what Nico had told her. _You didn’t kill your father. The man was already dead. You only dispelled a ghost._ She raised her javelin. “You are not my father. You are no one’s ghost.” Her voice sounded shaky, even to herself.

“Coward. Traitor.” He growled at her, glowing the same way he had when he threw the chair at Hylla. “Can't even accept your treachery.” She closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts. She swallowed the lump of emotions threatening to choke her. _Not now._ “You aren’t really my father.” _Maybe it’s time you stepped out of his shadow._ Her grip on her javelin was firmer now. “You’re just an imitation. And I stepped out of his shadow long ago.”

She racked her brain, trying to name the problem in front of her. Ghosts. Something to do with ghosts. Regrets? Ghosts of… “You’re Melinoe.” She realized. “You’re the goddess of the restless dead. What do you want?”

Al took another step forward and seemed to ask a question. Her voice was shaky, almost desperate, pleading in a way Reyna didn’t think Al ever would. Her hands were shaking slightly, Juno’s sword hanging loosely from them. Reyna grabbed her and pulled her back. As soon as she identified her, Melinoe had taken her real form.

Her right half was pale chalky white like she’d been drained of blood. Her left half was pitch black and hardened like mummy skin. She wore a golden dress and a golden shawl. Her eyes were empty black voids, like the deepest reaches of an abyss.

Reyna threw her javelin. Al seemed to guess what she was doing and sprang upon her with a roar. “NO!”

Reyna was painfully reminded of the fact that Al was slightly heavier and an about half an inch taller than her. _What the Hades were her bones made of, bronze_? Al’s fist slammed into her nose, breaking it. Her eyes watered with the force of the punch. She stumbled because of Al’s weight, knees slamming into her thighs. She cried as her back hit the ground. Al had a wild look in her eyes, full of rage. The javelin missed by inches, but Melinoe backed up, dark fog that Reyna hadn’t even realized was there dissipating around them.

Al had the weight advantage, but Reyna had been training for years. She grabbed Al’s throat and brought her elbows up into Al’s chest. She grabbed her arms and used all her strength to switch places, pinning Al to the ground with her knee. She held Al’s arms firmly and hoped her hands wouldn’t burst into flames.

“Snap out of it.” She growled at her. “It’s an illusion. Melinoe’s messing with your head.” Al glared at her and tried to push her off. “For gods’ sake, Al!” she snapped at her. “Your sister is _dead._ She isn’t that ghoul you saw!”

It was harsh, but Al stopped struggling. The anger in her eyes slowly faded to defeat, fog clearing, hands shaking, and she rested her head on the ground. Reyna got off and stretched out a hand. After a long moment, Al took it and got to her feet.

A clapping sound came from behind them. Melinoe was leaning against a wall, looking amused. “Well, well, well. You know what they say. Our fears show us for what we truly are. A murderer and a failure. Quite a pair.”

Al stepped forward, dark rage filling her eyes, like the thinnest layer of volcanic rock over bubbling lava, ready to lash out at the slightest provocation. Reyna hadn’t thought Al was capable of such fury. “You bastard.” She practically snarled. “You fucking bastard. What did my sister ever do to you?”

Melinoe laughed. “You know, your sister was right. You are nothing but a façade of charm and laughter and tricks and jokes, and underneath it all you are just a hollow shell full of empty promises and lies and broken vows and half-truths.” She sneered. “What was it that you promised her? That it would be fine? That you would figure it out? How many months was it until you buried her tiny little seven-year old body too? Wait, my apologies. You never buried your stepfather in the first place. Couldn’t even find his body. You should just crawl into the shadows and hide until the storm blows over, little trickster. After all, isn’t that all you’re good at?”

Al leapt at her with the sword, fully intent on murdering the goddess. Melinoe just gave one last chuckle and vanished, leaving Al to crash into an empty wall. Al didn’t stand, just crouching there, forehead against the cold wall, shoulders shaking.

Reyna wasn’t really sure what to do. She had never been good at comforting people. Al had told her that her sister was five years younger than her. If Amy had been seven, then Al had been twelve. If she had lost Hylla, she wouldn’t have been able to function at that age. She still had nightmares where Orion’s arrow found its mark, leaving another Amazon dead in his wake.

Al slowly stood up from the wall. “Let’s go.” Her voice was hard and unfeeling. “There’s nothing of any good here.” Her tone made it clear that any sympathy would not be appreciated. Her brown eyes were hard as basalt, and her hands were clenched tightly. Reyna couldn’t really say anything. Her own way of dealing with problems was to clench her fists and swing her javelin in the training area until she calmed down. Al stomped down the corridor, not caring whether she was following.

Reyna silently adjusted her grip on her javelin and followed her.

************

Reyna glanced at the person sitting next to her in the train. They’d taken the first exit they could find, which _had_ to open up on the opposite side of the country from where she wanted to be. Maine wasn’t really on her bucket list, but she wished it was at a better time of the year. It wasn’t quite fall, not quite winter during early November in Maine. It was brown and dreary because the leaves were gone but winter wasn’t here yet. Al had simply been sitting staring out of the window all the time. She hadn’t even said anything when they practically scraped her wallet clean to buy tickets to New York.

“So we just go up to the Empire State Building and hand this over to the goatskin lady?” Al suddenly asked. Reyna nodded. The stony anger in her eyes had faded away, but they still missed their usual mischievous twinkle, looking cold and emotionless. Without it, Al just looked sad and defeated.

“Sorry about the nose.” Al winced. “I know firsthand that it hurts like hell.”

“You never told me about your family.” Reyna placed a hand over her nose. They’d managed to find a medical store and grabbed some bandages from there, setting her nose in place. She just wished she had nectar or ambrosia. Her voice sounded like she had a cold.

Al shrugged. “Not discussion material.” She fingered the watch on her wrist. “So, what happens now? If I’m Greek, am I still allowed membership into the Legion?”

Reyna nodded. “Technically, you are. However, it’s best that you go to the Greek camp if you’re Greek. Roman magical boundaries tend to mess with Greek blessings. Percy lost the Achilles Curse as soon as he set foot in the Little Tiber.”

“A blessing called a curse. Just wow.” Al muttered under her breath. She ran a hand through her hair, which only made it curlier. “I’m twenty per cent sure I’m insane.”

Reyna raised her eyebrows. “Only twenty?”

Al stuck her tongue out at her, and Reyna laughed. It felt good to have a friend by her side, not for help with the Legion or a comfort for loneliness, but someone there just because they wanted to be. It used to be this way before, when she, Jason, Dakota, Bobby and Gwen used to be thick as thieves. Then she became Praetor along with Jason, and if she spent too much time with her friends she was accused of favoritism. Then Jason disappeared, and Gwen left the Legion to go to college, and her only close friend left was Nico. “I guess this means you’re coming with me?”

Al raised her chin in mock defiance. “This was _my_ quest too.” She grinned when Reyna rolled her eyes. “Besides, I don’t really have much else going on in my life right now. Might as well enjoy the craziness. But if I start leaking blood from my eyeballs or something, I’m gonna come back and haunt you _so_ hard.”

Reyna glared at her. “No ghosts, please. I’ve had enough for a lifetime.”

Al’s eyes gleamed. “You know, if it wasn’t so unethical, I’d totally blackmail you with this right? Like threaten to show you ghost movies, ya know, The Conjuring, The Nun, Annabelle?”

“Because you’re a shining beacon of ethics, right?”

“Offended!”

Reyna laughed. She wondered when was the last time she had felt so light and carefree, not forced to wear a mask of calmness and control wherever she went. Al seemed to understand what she was thinking. “It’s lonely at the top.”

Reyna sighed. “Damn right it is.”

Al leant back into the seat of the Amtrak. “Yesterday I was unhappy, tomorrow I may be unhappy again, but today I know I’m happy. I want to live on and on. I feel life isn’t long enough to satisfy me.” Al turned to her and smiled, and suddenly the merry twinkle was back in her eyes. She pulled out the deck of cards from her pocket. “Care to play, Praetor? I know every game you’ve ever heard of.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Al's last quote (not the cards part) is from Ruskin Bond's story 'The Crooked Tree' which I thought was beautiful and couldn't help but add. Trivia is the Roman name of Hecate, and I apologize if I called her Hecate earlier in Reyna's POV. I only know whatever mythology Rick's books taught me, and fanfics. Apart from that, there will be two more chapters to this fic, after which I'll post the second part, Blood for Blood within a week. Ciao!


	19. Chapter XIX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is second-last chapter of this story. Next update will be in a week.

**AL**

Al was already a thief the first time she had run into the Ramirez-Arellanos.

She hadn’t remembered them earlier, but it had suddenly just clicked that these two sisters were _those_ two sisters, whom she had seen late one June evening in an old garage in the middle of New York. She remembered them now, the older sister with her proud, fierce gaze, probably around sixteen years old, bandage around her forehead, crusted with dried blood, and the smaller younger sister, probably a few months younger than her, around eleven, but with the same defiance in her eyes. They had been arguing about something in rapid Spanish, too low for her to hear as she watched from the corner. The older sister had been driving a car, which she brought to the garage. Al knew that more often than not cars which came to the garage rarely ever got collected by their owners; instead they tended to be repainted, cleaned, given new numbers and sold. The owner made way more profit selling stolen cars than he did by his legal repairing business.

It was also the reason she worked there. She got payed more, and god knows she needed the money. If she turned a blind eye to what was going on, and helped to make the cars as good as new, well then, she didn’t really care.

She had been in a hurry to leave; she had a younger sister to get home to, if the place where she lived could be called a home. The siblings were quite interesting, though. The wound on the older girl’s face couldn’t have been made with a knife, or a dagger or a blade. Maybe a sword… but that was ridiculous.

One thing that she loved was observing people, trying to figure out little details about them, a trick her father taught her.

_Remember this, kid. Everyone has a story, no matter how mundane it might be. It shows in little ways, even in the way they drink their coffee. But no one notices it. Everyone is too damn busy drinking their own coffee._

So it was good that Al wasn’t overly fond of coffee.

She ran an eye over the two of them. They were both lean and tired, like they hadn’t had proper food for days. A sailor’s rasp. _Weird, that._ Scars peeking out in some places. _Abuse? Mugging?_ Callused hands. Not writing calluses. Work calluses, like laborers had. Burn marks on palms, like a rope that had passed too quickly between them, peeling the skin off. Sailors on a ship? Tense stances, like they were expecting someone to jump out and fight them. Dark circles for sleepless nights. Younger sister had a face full of guilt. On the run from some crime, perhaps?

She suddenly realized that the older sister was looking right at her. Her eyes were black as obsidian and piercing as a sword, like she was stabbing her with her eyes. _Dangerous._

Ronald Haden, or Paulo DaCosta, or whatever you wanted to call him, was not like ordinary dads. He didn’t teach her math, or how to play ball, or take her on treks. He was slightly low in the ethics section, if his profession was anything to go by. But he taught her something else, which was the greatest gift he could have given her. _Survival._ It was the only reason she was still on her feet after all that had happened. He’d taught her how to handle spotlight, how to melt into the shadows, how to bargain and how to stand firm, to know the difference between genius and fraud, between eccentricity and foolishness, between con and mark.

And Strange Sister Number One was no mark.

She turned around and ran into the alley.

*****************

Al rested her head against the glass window of the Amtrak. Truth be told, the encounter with Melinoe had hit her hard. Any mention of her sister was always accompanied with guilt and regret that she didn’t really want to deal with.

She could still hear her naïve twelve-year old self trying to reassure her sister. _Look, I know this is messed up. But I’ll figure it out. It will all be fine. Trust me._ And she had trusted her, only to be buried in the cold earth a few months later. Because she couldn’t control her temper. Because they fought. Because she stormed away. Because gang violence in that area was so common that no one cared a seven-year old was the collateral damage in a robbery gone wrong. Because, apparently, if you didn’t exist on paper, you didn’t exist at all. They were just like the strays that ran around on the roads, right? Why did they fight? Why did she have to leave her sister alone that day? Why were all her words full of half-truths and lies?

She tried to control the tide of grief rising within her. _No, no, no. I’m not dealing with this now._

Then again, when had she ever dealt with it? It was just so much easier to be the person with the microscope, peering into other people’s lives than to actually try and understand her own. To be the showman on the stage, forever charming the audience, without giving even a peek into the secrets in their cloak.

She pushed the thoughts away. _Let the dead past bury its dead._ It made her feel better to engage in random banter with Reyna. Annoying her was definitely a plus. There seemed to be an invisible line where amused exasperation changed into genuine anger, which was not to be crossed. They spent the rest of the ride playing Blackjack, and at the end of it Reyna was completely pissed off. To be fair, Al had only cheated twice, but Reyna should know better than allowing her to shuffle, and she couldn’t resist getting a hat trick.

Reyna threw her cards down. “Impossible!”

Al grinned. “You’re just bad at it.”

Reyna scoffed. “Pirates gamble every damn day. I’ve been betting since I was eleven.”

Al gave her a two-fingered salute. “Aye, Aye, Ravager Ramirez!”

Reyna rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “It’s Ramirez-Arellano.”

Al rubbed her palms. “Dread Pirate Ramirez-Arellano!”

Reyna pretended to consider it. “That works.”

Al placed her cards down, facing up to show her hand to be blackjack. “I win. And you owe me twenty denarii in total.”

Reyna glared at her, and Al tried for the most innocent smile she could give. She was seventy percent sure she was about to be gutted by a certain daughter of Bellona. Just then the announcement system came to life and the Amtrak slowly came to a stop. They had reached New York.

Reyna fingered her javelin. Al still wasn’t sure how she managed to carry that thing into the train without anyone noticing. “Let’s go to Olympus, joker. if you survive, we’ll see about the jellybeans.”

*****************

“Woah. Like w-o-a-h.” Al stared in disbelief at the sight in front of her. Floor number six hundred (seriously, that was insane) was mind blowing. They were standing on a narrow stone walkway in the middle of the air. Below me was Manhattan, from the height of an airplane. In front of them, white marble steps wound up the spine of a cloud, into the sky. Al’s eyes followed the stairway to its end, where her brain just could not accept what she saw.

From the top of the clouds rose the decapitated peak of a mountain, its summit covered with snow. Clinging to the mountainside were dozens of multileveled palaces-a city of mansions-all with white-columned porticos, gilded terraces, and bronze braziers glowing with a thousand fires. In the early-morning darkness, torches and fires made the mountainside palaces glow twenty different colors, from blood red to indigo. Roads wound crazily up to the peak, where the largest palace gleamed against the snow. Precariously perched gardens bloomed with olive trees and rosebushes. She could make out an open-air market filled with colorful tents, a stone amphitheater built on one side of the mountain, a hippodrome and a coliseum on the other. It was an Ancient Roman city, except it wasn’t in ruins. It was new, and clean, and colorful, the way Rome or Carthage or something (she was really bad at history) must’ve looked twenty-five hundred years ago.

“The tip of a mountain hanging over New York City like a billion-ton asteroid? How could something like that be anchored above the Empire State Building, in plain sight of millions of people, and not get noticed?” Al turned to Reyna. Reyna shrugged. “You won't believe how effective the Mist can be.” She said as she walked on the narrow path. “Percy said that once his classmates saw a hellhound and thought it was a poodle.” Al didn’t even have the wits to make a comment on that.

Her trip through Olympus was a daze. They passed some giggling wood nymphs who threw olives at them from their garden, much to Reyna’s annoyance. Hawkers in the market offered to sell them ambrosia-on-a-stick, and a new shield, and a genuine glitter-weave replica of the Golden Fleece, as seen on Hephaestus-TV (apparently that was a real thing). Everybody seemed in a festive mood. They climbed the main road, toward the big palace at the peak. Music drifted up from many windows, the soft sounds of lyres and reed pipes. Towering at the peak of the mountain was the greatest palace of all, the glowing white hall of the gods. Twelve enormous thrones made a U around a central hearth, in which an enormous fire crackled. Three figures were waiting for them there.

The first was Goatskin Lady Juno. The second was probably Jupiter, and the third was a grey-eyed woman dressed in some ancient Greek or Roman style. “Athena,” mumbled Reyna under her breath. “They are in their Greek form.”

Al nodded. They could have been Norse for all she knew. Jupiter was slightly scary. The very atmosphere around him seemed to be charged with ozone, like lightning would burst out of him at any moment like a Greek Thor. She wondered whether the real Thor looked anything like Chris Hemsworth. Was there even a real Thor? She mentally slapped herself. _Focus._

Athena was pretty scary too. Her grey eyes bored right into her, like they were shredding her apart to see into her soul. Was that what people felt like when she spouted random facts about them with a glance?

Goatskin Juno wasn’t in goatskin anymore, but she still watched them with her dark eyes. This was pretty awkward. They were just watching them walk. It was like being called on a stage, except she had no idea what the hell was going on, and the audience could incinerate her at will. She resisted the urge to bring out a coin and ask whether anyone wanted a magic trick. Or maybe she could run away screaming. She hadn’t felt stage fright since she was six, but this definitely took the cake.

“Daughter of Bellona.” Juno _no, Hera,_ looked at Reyna. “Do you have it?”

Reyna nodded and took the sword from Al. “Yes, my Lady.” She stepped forward to hand it to the goddess.

_Wow, they even talk like some crazy old king’s court._

Hera made no move to take the sword. Instead, she turned to look at Al. “Granddaughter of Hermes.” Reyna turned slightly to give her a smirk. Al resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at her. The three Olympians didn’t look amused. “Daughter of the Void.”

Al blinked. “Daughter of the what, now?” Even Reyna looked confused.

Athena stood up from the throne. “Follow me, Riley Allison.” Al gave a start of surprise. Almost no one knew her full name. “There are many things that we must discuss.”

****************

Al’s head was reeling by the time they left Olympus. The elevator was almost a comfort in its mundanity. Reyna looked lost in her own thoughts.

She had a hard time dealing with the fact that the myths were real, and this was starting to become more and more ridiculous with each passing moment. Sure, when she was younger, she’d wanted to be a superhero, but she was _seven._ This wasn’t what she’d imagined, and the skeptical outlook of her recent years made her believe that she was stuck in a very, very weird dream. Maybe she was having an Alice in Wonderland experience, and someone would wake her up.

_For someone who decides the fate of the world, you don’t seem to be much._ Athena had surveyed her like a complicated blueprint. _But I know better than any other Olympian that appearances are deceptive. Remember, child, I have my eye on you. You are only alive because we don’t know about the other champion. Otherwise, you would have been put down long ago. You are too big a liability._

Al swallowed. _Gee, thanks._

Athena didn’t seem to be deterred. _This is nothing personal. I wanted to do the same to Perseus Jackson and Thalia Grace. You will go to Camp Jupiter with the Praetor, and complete the prophecy. Do not mess this up. If I find that you are on the wrong side of this fight, I will not hesitate to destroy you._ She’d then handed the sword to Al (how did she get it from Reyna without her seeing in the first place?) and coolly walked out of the room, like threatening demigods was just another thing on her everyday checklist.

“You look like you’re going to be sick.” Reyna commented. “If you throw up on my shoes, I won't forgive you. Ever.”

Al didn’t even feel like bantering with her. She tried to push her panic over Athena’s words down. She grabbed at the first coherent non-Olympian thought she had. “Does Loki look like Tom Hiddleston?”

She mentally smacked herself in the head. Seriously, was that what was going through her brain?

Reyna rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You’re impossible.”

“So says the psycho purple ninja owing me twenty denarii.” Al tried for a grin.

The elevator doors opened to show a man waiting outside. He was middle-aged man with an athletic figure, slim and fit like a jogger, with curly black hair, blue eyes, elfish features, and a sly grin. He was wearing nylon running shorts and New York City Marathon T-shirt. He had a cell phone in his hand, and… _did his shoes have wings?_

“Praetor.” He glanced at Reyna. “You can wait outside. I would like a word with my granddaughter here.”

Al almost choked. Reyna nodded, like it was perfectly normal for middle aged men in jogging outfits to call teenagers their granddaughter. Al almost felt a bit lost when she left.

Mercury _no, Hermes_ turned towards her. Despite her nervousness, she could see some of her mother’s features in his face: the curly black hair, the twinkle in his eye, the sly smile, like he was hiding a secret. He smiled softly. “You look exactly like your mother, the last I saw her.” There seemed to be regret in his voice. “I assume she is dead.”

Al nodded numbly. Hermes flicked his cell phone, and it turned into a caduceus, two snakes binding themselves around it. Al took a step back. She didn’t hate snakes, but she liked to keep them at a safe distance, preferably behind a glass wall or any other barrier where they wouldn’t be able to reach her.

_Don’t be afraid, dear._ One of the snakes hissed. _I’m Martha, and that is George. We don’t hurt mortals._

_Unless they’re rats._ The other snake said. _We love rats._

“Your snakes are called George and Martha?”

Hermes chuckled. “They help me in my job.” His face grew serious. “I’m assuming Athena had her little chat with you.”

Al nodded. “She was very… upfront.”

“You mean she told you that she wanted to kill you.” The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. “Your mother and your stepfather are all that have kept you alive. I never approved of Hecate’s boy, but” he shrugged. “Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.”

Hearing someone call her dad ‘boy’ was probably one of the weirdest statements she’d heard, and she’d heard some _ridiculous_ things in her time as an assistant to her father’s psychic business.

Hermes seemed to read her mind. “You must give up your skepticism, child. You have a hard path in front of you, and-” he cut himself off before he could say anymore.

“And what?” Al demanded. “What’s going to happen?”

Hermes placed a hand on her shoulder, and she resisted the urge to shake it off and step back. “When the time comes, I hope you make the right choice.” His eyes bored into her. “I failed my son.” His voice faltered for a moment. “I could not protect my daughter. I want to see you happy.”

Al shifted nervously. She wasn’t used to showing affection or being shown affection, and the fact that her immortal grandfather seemed so concerned about her wellbeing made her uncomfortable. “Umm… thanks?”

Hermes looked almost amused at her response. “Just like your mother. You should leave now, before Zeus gets mad at me for talking too much. Catch.” He tossed her a wad of cash. “Here. You’ll need it.”

The sky rumbled all of a sudden. “All right, all right, I get it!” Hermes yelled at the sky. He turned to her. “Go. Hopefully, we won't be enemies in the field of battle.”

_Goodbye, Al._ Martha hissed in her head. _We’ll see you again._

_Bring us rats._ George said. _Preferably before the end of the world. No pressure, though._

_George!_ Martha chided. _The kid has enough on her plate._

_Does she have enough rats on her plate?_

“Stop it, you two.” Hermes rolled his eyes. “Or I’ll turn you back into cellphone mode.”

_But that is so cramped!_

_Shut up, you oaf!_

Al laughed. “Goodbye, George and Martha. Thank you, Lord Hermes.”

_Don’t forget the rats!_

**********************

Al leaned back into the seat of the train. For once, she was actually going to sit back and _think._

A lot of things that used to bother her earlier were slowly making sense. Some of her dad’s tricks had been downright impossible, but they made sense if he could actually do magic. The constant movement from one place to another also made sense now. She had a feeling that her dad had used the Mist for a lot of his tricks. She remembered asking him once how he made people believe that he could do magic. _People see what they think they will see. That is the secret._ Was that Mist manipulation?

Al shook her head. This was boring. She grinned and pulled out the little packet of jellybeans she’d bought at the station. They’d just managed to get on in time, but Al was nothing if not evil. She smirked at the Praetor in front of her and popped a handful into her mouth, licking the sugar coating the tips of her fingers. Reyna looked like she was trying to decide whether to laugh or to glare. She settled for the latter.

Al gave her best I-am-so-innocent smile and hoped that she wouldn’t end up with a dagger in her gut. Truth be told, she liked the Praetor, and even considered her a friend. Al didn’t trust anyone easily, but she’d trusted the Praetor. Her father’s advice kept ringing in her head. _Be careful what you tell people. A friend today could be an enemy tomorrow._ She’d followed that piece of throughout her life, and it had never disappointed her, especially with her brief stint in one of the gangs of Hell’s Kitchen.

But Reyna had earned her respect. Early on, she’d learnt that respect and admiration were two different things. Admiration was what you had for a magician or a circus performer doing their job flawlessly, charming the audience with their skill. Respect was what you had for a person you knew you could only hope to become. She’d known that Reyna was hiding dark secrets _way_ before Reyna told her about her patricide. Once, she’d asked her father how he managed to get even the harshest people to lower their guard. Her father had given her a sly smile. _That’s simple. You lower your own. Humans are just smart apes. They’ll mimic what they see._ The trick had worked like a charm. But instead of the usual elation she felt after figuring out a puzzle or a person, she’d come to respect the Roman. Reyna was utterly and completely loyal to Rome and her friends, as Roman as anyone could get, a person who kept their word with their honor. Al may not have those virtues, but she could respect them. Maybe, just maybe, Camp Jupiter wouldn’t be so bad.

She leaned back and closed her eyes, lulled to sleep by her thoughts and the motion of the train.

************************

Just because she was now officially part of the demigod world, that didn’t mean she wanted to have their prophetic dreams and stuff.

Al didn’t really have dreams. At least, she didn’t remember them afterwards. But she was pretty sure she was going to remember this one.

She felt like she had been suspended in space, like a piece of paper in an ocean. She felt awake, but she couldn’t really see anything, pitch darkness surrounding her. It was as though her senses had shut down completely, no sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, nothing but thought.

_We finally meet._ Al nearly had a heart attack. The voice had come from nowhere inside her head. She couldn’t have said whether it was low or high, baritone or tenor, it was just _there,_ like her brain had processed sound her ears could not hear. _My apologies. I did not wish to startle you._

What the hell? Who are you? Her voice didn’t work, so she tried to project her thoughts. Hello? Is this comm one way?

The voice chuckled. _You don’t need to shout. I can understand you just as well if you simply think of what you’d say to me._

Okay, Al thought. Who are you?

_Considering that we met only once, I’m not disappointed you can't recognize your own father._

Okayyyy. Al thought. I’m guessing that was around the same time as the ah _encounter_ you had with mom just before Amy was born. That’s not really important, though. I have a hell lot of questions.

_I can imagine._

What am I, exactly? A demigod? Do I fight for Chaos or Cosmos?

_Whatever you wish to be. I would not call you a demigod. Perhaps a demi-primordial. And as for the last question, that is for you to figure out._

Wow, Al thought. I am whatever I wish to be. Nice pep talk. And figure out, like it’s a crossword? Can't you just tell me? Might make it easier.

_That is not for me to choose. I can only guide you, warn you, like I helped my son. But the choice is your own. You are not heads or tails, you are the coin. You write your own destiny… and the world’s._

So, no pressure. Al thought. Okay, any tips?

Silence. 

Hello? Hey? Anyone there?

More silence.

Typical, Al thought. Are you ignoring me, or-

She felt a sudden jolt as the train came to a halt, waking her from her dreams. She blinked, taking a moment to remember where she was. The train was lit brightly in fluorescent lights, but she couldn’t shake off the cold feeling in her gut. She was supposed to make a choice, but she didn’t know what choice. On a sudden instinct, she slipped her hand into her pocket.

She brought out a coin, slightly larger and a tiny bit heavier than an ordinary coin. One side was engraved with eight arrows projecting outwards from the center, perfectly symmetrical along each line. The other side was minted with a circle, within which four half-circles made a flower-like diagram of sorts.

_You are not heads or tails, you are the coin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually managed to finish writing an entire fic! The last chapter will be an epilogue of sorts. The two symbols Al sees on the coin are of Chaos and Cosmos. I've never been to Rome or Greece and only know what Rick taught me (beyond the fact that Romans are more stabby stabby and Greeks are slashy slashy (that was the tweet, right?)) so all my research is based on whatever I could find on Google. I don't even know if those symbols are Greek or Roman or Chinese or whatever. Any criticism is welcome, as long as it is constructive. I intend to make events to move faster in the second part, but for now, this is it. I hope it's good enough! :-)


	20. Chapter XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is a bit short, but I intended it to be this way. It's kinda like an epilogue, a summation of events occurring since and since I couldn't make it someone's POV, it's just a general POV. Is it still an epilogue if it has a flashback? (scratches head) Whatever, I guess.

**EPILOGUE**

**TWELVE YEARS AGO**

The moon shone through the open window, a pale beam of light finding its way in the darkness of the room, casting a silver glow on the floor. The room wasn’t really much to look at; a small bed, a decently-sized closet, a trunk of drawers with a nightlamp, and a desk and chair were the only contents of the room. Most of it was wooden, the dark brown wood cold to touch in the silent winter night.

At present, the chair was occupied by a woman, with a soft smile and deep brown eyes, her long wavy hair unfettered by restraints. She had angular features, but they were not prominent, forming a strange but agreeable balance between the two. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. She held a tiny bundle of blankets in her arms, the occupant of which was currently asleep. She slowly got up and gently placed the baby next to the small child sleeping on the bed, drawing up a blanket over them both. Her touch was gentle, but there was a tightness to her face. She took a deep breath and gently stepped out of the room into a hallway, down to a washroom at the end of the hall. Light and water from a faucet formed a spectrum of colors on the wall. She drew a coin from her pocket and threw it into the rainbow.

“Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering.”

************************

One week later, two people met in a tiny café in London.

The first was the woman. The second was a man with short-cropped black hair and blue-grey eyes, tanned from his time in the tropics.

“Paulo.”

“Robin.”

A tense silence followed the greeting, the kind that exists between two individuals who knew each other well but now have walked too far down different paths.

The man shifted in his seat. “I’m guessing you didn’t call me halfway across the world because you missed me.”

A small smile crept upon her face. She gestured to the nearby table, where a scrawny five-year old sat with a baby in her lap, completely fascinated by it. The man inhaled sharply. “Are they yours?”

The woman nodded.

“How? When?” The man seemed to be at a loss for words. He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What did you call me for?”

The woman turned away slightly. “The first was a drunken mistake. The second was… complicated. But it was still _my_ mistake.”

The man leaned forward. “And?”

The woman hesitated, then started to speak again. “There is something I need to do. I’ll explain everything, I promise. But these children… they are important. But meanwhile, I need your help.”

The man clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to do this, but he would do anything for her, and he hated himself for it. “What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to hide them.”

********************

An hour later, a copy of the world map was spread out on the table of a hotel room. The man looked like he was still trying to process the information he’d been given. He raised his cup of coffee to his lips and took a small sip of the bitter brew.

The woman took out a red marker from a handbag. “The Americas are not an option.” She crossed out the two continents.

The man nodded. “Cross out Africa.”

She frowned. “Why?”

The man raised his eyebrows. “Out of the camps and into the Nomes? That’s a terrible idea. I’d rather deal with Chiron and Lupa than Iskandar and Desjardins.”

“Agreed.” Another continent got crossed out. “Antarctica’s not an option.” She said with a laugh.

“Australia, too.”

The woman looked confused. “What’s wrong with Australia?”

The man gave a sheepish smile, scratching his hair. “I might be, you know, persona non grata there.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Gods of Olympus, Paulo-”

“It was a misunderstanding!”

The woman burst into laughter. The man chuckled, hands in his pockets. A tense silence fell between the two friends, who looked awkwardly at each other.

The man cleared his throat. “Europe is where we are, so that’s not an option. The Greek and Roman gods are too powerful here. That leaves Asia.”

“Agreed.”

A map of Asia was soon spread out on the table, cities being crossed out one by one. Finally, a list was compiled, and tickets were booked.

Three days later, four people left London on a steamer to Bombay.

********************

**PRESENT DAY**

Several incidents were occurring at the same time, like the chain reaction in a nuclear reactor.

A letter was opened in Wyoming, a phone call was made, and a small group of four Hunters of Artemis, including their Lieutenant, made their way westwards to California.

At the same time, another letter made its way from Seattle to San Francisco, bearing the seal of the Amazons, which consequently received a reply from the Praetor currently in charge of Camp Jupiter.

Inside the camp itself, a pink-haired girl was exploring every nook and corner of it, trying to find all kinds of secret exits and entrances to the city, accompanied by a twelve-year old child of Bacchus.

The senior Praetor of the camp was currently halfway across the country along with a certain grandchild of Hermes. In order to avoid mass panic within camp, it was decided to be best to introduce the new arrival as a Greek legacy of Hermes.

On receiving the response to the aforementioned letter, a small party of three Amazons, including their queen, made their way southwards to New Rome.

In the Underworld, a hunt was being conducted for three spirits, two that had been dead for five years, the other dead for eleven. So far, the search had been unsuccessful.

Lastly, a harpy residing inside a bookshop squawked excitedly as she scratched out a prophecy on a paper with a quill in a scruffy handwriting.

_Ten shall go north to the land beyond the gods_

_One shall reach the shrine against all odds_

_Revenge’s rage fuel the flame_

_Secrets and mistrust birth blame_

_One shall fall by a friend’s hand_

_Son of chaos makes his final stand._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOHOO! This fic is officially over. I intend to continue and make a second part. Weekly updates, so the first chapter should be posted on Dec 18, unless I change my mind for some reason. If you're reading this, congratulations, you made it through 150 pages of an MS Word document of my shit. I would love it if you tell me what you think of this. Next week, part 2, everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Adios! Thanks for reading!


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